So, if you happen to use WordPress – like we do – then you’ll get excited about this. Automattic’s Jetpack has received an update, and this time adds their Publicize feature and adds support for Post By Email, Infinite Scroll and access to their Image CDN for free.
For those who aren’t up to scratch with this plugin, this is meant to plug the features gap between WordPress.org (where you have to host the blog on your server) and WordPress.com (where they host it for you). Many of Jetpack’s functions are available in other plugins, but some of them don’t compete with Jetpack.
Take for instance, Publicize. This tool lets you publish the post through popular social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Yahoo. While there are better alternatives for publishing to Twitter, doing it to Facebook is a different story. The official Facebook one is known to be buggy, others often are integrated with other services. Publicize, however, just works. I should know, we’re using it right now to publish to Facebook.
Accessing their Image CDN – called Photon – will cache and resize your images, if activated. That said, it only works for gif (not animated), png and jpg files; and you cannot ‘refresh’ the image – meaning that if you want to make a change, you have to upload it as a new file.
On top of that, Jetpack also includes WordPress.com stats, a new comments system, spelling and grammar through After the Deadline, a new mobile-optimised theme, extra sidebar widgets found on WordPress.org, and push notifications.
You can download Jetpack through WordPress’ plugin directory.