I was thinking–wouldn’t it be neat to display small pictures (when available) of the persons listed on your blogroll.

We could call it a “mugroll”.

It would be a similar concept to the custom icon displayed for the website and/or bookmark for a website.

Now, there’s always the question of how to standardize and automate such a project. Would you force a specific filename on a website like /robots.txt does for search engines and bots? Maybe a standard-sized (what dimensions?) PNG, GIF, or JPG file called /aboutme.png. I think requiring a specific path could help automate harvesting, but it might be too restrictive for more complex scenarios than a single-author website.

Or maybe we could add an optional <authorpic> element to the various syndication feeds.

And what about a multi-author blog? Could you have an OPML file with authorpic entries, one for each author? Just rambling here.

Would it be OK to reference graphics on the author’s site? Or should we snarf it and host it ourselves to save the author’s bandwidth?

Maybe we could add some kind of new HTML META or LINK tag that points to the picture.

Oh, and by the way, to get the “mug” rolling, here’s my mug (in no standard dimensions):