This past weekend I released a new module into the set of Drupal contributed modules: the Meez Integration module.

Meez Integration Module Background

Meez is a system for creating a centralized avatar which you can then use on any site. The avatar construction process is somewhat similar to other online avatar building systems such as SecondLife. There are all sorts of branding opportunities for businesses and non-profit organizations - perhaps we should create a Druplicon T-Shirt for Meez the closet. Meez avatars "integrate" into any site by allowing you to download the picture and then upload it into the site. That's great, but for a recent site we needed tighter integration with Meez. The site already had some of the work done so we made some slight tweaks, turned it into a module, and it's now available on Drupal.org.

Meez Module Usage

To start using the module, it's as simple as downloading it, enabling it, and creating a profile field to hold the Meez username. Then whenever a user edits or updates their Meez username the module uses the Meez API to retrieve the links to the updated version of their avatar. It doesn't download the image, just the link. You need to edit your theme template file to actually display the images, but the README.txt includes some theme snippets that show how to do that.

As the Meez website says: "Here at Meez, our mission is to make digital interactions more expressive. More visual. And more fun." This Meez Integration module helps spread those goals inside of the world of Drupal. Iif you want to see how Meez works - take a look at my profile