The Open Graph #8
Welcome to The Open Graph, Gravatar’s newsletter for developers building better user experiences on the web. This month, we gave our team a challenge: take a day to build something fun, unique, and interesting using AI tools and Gravatar. The results? Three working apps that showcase how quickly you can ship personalized experiences.
Challenge accepted
We wanted to see what’s really possible when you combine modern AI development tools with Gravatar’s profile data. Our team grabbed their favorite AI assistants — Loveable, v0, Cursor, Claude — and started building. No lengthy planning sessions, no perfect architecture diagrams. Just ideas and rapid iteration.
The rules were simple:
- Use any AI tool to help build
- Integrate Gravatar meaningfully
- Ship something that works in about a day
- Have fun with it
Here’s what we built.
App #1: WiSH – Wishlists and gifts
The idea: A shopping assistant that helps you find gift ideas for friends.
How it works: Enter someone’s email, and WiSH uses their Gravatar profile and our inferred interests endpoint to suggest perfect gifts. Marketing manager who loves coffee and podcasts? Here’s a premium podcast mic and artisan coffee subscription. Developer into retro gaming? Check out this mechanical keyboard with 8-bit keycaps.
Built with: Cursor for the UI, OpenAI for the recommendation logic, hosted on Vercel
The magic moment: Watching the app nail gift suggestions based on real interests, not just generic “gifts for developers” lists.
Time to build: The UI and recommendation piece took less than a day. It did take us longer to sort out a quality set of products that gave us good results. We ended up creating a temporary database of products from public sites using WooCommerce. We could extend with Google and Amazon product APIs as well.
App #2: PodMatch – Podcast recommendations
The idea: A podcast discovery engine that goes beyond “you might also like.”
How it works: Connect with your email, and PodMatch uses our profile markdown file to analyzes your Gravatar profile – job title, interests, verified accounts – to surface podcasts you’ll love. Frontend developer interested in sustainability? Here’s that new green tech podcast. Product manager who follows space news? Queue up the latest from SpaceX insiders.
Note: Add .md to a profile URL to quickly see (or use) the data in a profile. Example: gravatar.com/ronnie.md
Built with: Loveable
The surprise: How accurately it predicted podcast preferences based on professional background + personal interests.
Time to build: Half a day — the hardest part was hooking up with Apple’s podcasts database.
App #3: EventSocial – Instant community
The idea: Create a better event RSVP and management tool so attendees no longer need to fill out endless profile fields.
How it works: Sign in with email, and boom – your profile is complete. Avatar, bio, interests, location (if shared) all populated from Gravatar. Learn about who’s attending events before you go. Find events based on what you’re actually interested in, not just broad categories.
Built with: Built the spec with Claude, v0 for the application
The game-changer: No profile setup fatigue or lost usernames and passwords. Users can join and RSVP to events with just an email address and all their details and social media accounts are displayed right from Gravatar, making communities more vibrant from the start. As a fun bonus, we added in QR code scanning for checking attendees in. Magic!
The next extension of this would be to use profile data to recommend events. It just keeps going!
Time to build: One full day.
What we learned
The main thing we learned was that each tool had its limits. We could tell that training data was outdated when it comes to Gravatar. For example, they all recommend and start building with MD5 hashing though we’ve long supported and encourage SHA256.
In fact, we took the prompts and information that we kept needing to feed to each tool to create our new one page AI instructions.
Speed matters: AI tools let us validate ideas in a day, not weeks. Some apps took just a few hours, others most of the day. 🏃♀️➡️
Profiles are powerful: Gravatar data instantly made each app feel personalized. No cold starts, no empty states. 👤
Privacy first still works: Users control their data. Our apps only use what people choose to share publicly. 🔐
The tools are just tools: Whether it was Loveable, V0, Cursor, or Claude, the key was having clear ideas about how Gravatar could enhance the user experience. 🧰
Getting started is literally copy-paste
Want to try the challenge yourself? Here’s your starter kit:
- Grab our AI instructions – Teaches any AI assistant how Gravatar works
- Pick an AI tool you like – We used Loveable, v0, Cursor, and Claude
- Check the API docs – For when you need the details
- Block out a day – Or even just an afternoon
- Pick an idea that excites you – The best apps solve problems you understand
Challenge yourself
We showed you what’s possible – now it’s your turn. Grab your favorite AI tool, integrate Gravatar, and build something interesting in a day. The most creative integration gets featured in next month’s newsletter (plus some exclusive Gravatar swag).
Some ideas to get you started:
- A conference app that shows attendee profiles instantly
- A dating app that matches based on real interests (not just swipes)
- A book club app that suggests reads based on member profiles
Share your creation: Tag us on Bluesky or X showing what you built!
P.S. The best part? You don’t need to be an AI or development expert. Just start with an idea, paste our instructions into your AI tool of choice, and start building. You might surprise yourself with what you can create in a day.
The Open Graph is published monthly by Gravatar. We’re building tools for a more open, connected web.
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