11
Mar
2011
Check me out, I just put my Jetpack on.
Automattic just released a new cloud-based set of utilities for WordPress self-hosted Blogs; Like this one. So how is this different then the current Plugins that are available? All of the tools that make up Jetpack are hosted via WordPress.com, so there is nothing to download, no Plugin updates with every new release of WP.
So Jetpack is a set of widgets with a cool logo? In a matter of speaking yes, but these are nicely grouped to make Jetpack a simple one stop shop for some of the most popular utilities. For example you get WordPress stats, a Twitter Widget, WP.me Shortlinks and one of my favorites After the Deadline which helps you write better by adding spell, style, and grammar checking to WordPress.
There is something that makes me think this is a move by Automattic to monetize the free and widely available WordPress platform. On each of the modules of Jetpack there is a little “Free” tag, of course most of these tools are available in some shape or form as free widgets or Plugins developed by 3rd parties. 
So I am guess at some point we will see a small cost associated with some of the more robust tools, possibly a move to scale to enterprise offering. Alternately this could be Automattic’s version of an App Store for the 32.5 million downloads of WP. A smart move since WordPress is used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites.
