Gizmoz new offering makes me feel good about some of our Voki features. Yup, I now have another avatar on my sidebar... a photorealistic 3D avatar created from a photo. You can even comment on a Gizmoz. Commenting on an avatar? Really... wow, I wonder where they got that? Still, kudos for adding that feature after the Voki launch. I also like the way they did it without a popup. We'll have to add that ourselves.
Still, I have to ask... what do people think about photorealistic avatars? Frankly, I think they're a little creepy. We've added them as part of the Sitepal service, but I've gone from using my custom drawn one, to a cartoon one, to one that's even more cartoony? I love my little bigheaded cartoon Voki guy and I think that one of the best parts of an avatar is that it's a representation of you... not actually you. We have this debate internally a lot and I've never been a big fan of 3-D photo conversion and am just fine sticking to my flat little 2D avatars.
PS... New commentary on StumbleUpon and Mahalo at Walken's site.