The second version of the WordPress plug-in by Automattic called Jetpack 2.0 has been launched and has whizzed past the 3 million downloads milestone. The successor to its previous version which reached 2 million downloads less than four months ago bridges the gap between WordPress.com and self-hosted blogs.
There are 54 million WordPress sites in the world divided between WordPress.com and WordPress.org open-source installs. One is self-hosted and the other is completely customizable and easier to use as free hosting is –inbuilt. And as the network grows the benefits also grow which can’t be enjoyed by independent WordPress sites unless they’re using Jetpack. So what’s new in this version??
Firstly, it lets users automatically share their blog content across social media which means instead of installing a number of different plug-ins to integrate with various systems you just use Jetpack. According to Automattic, it makes WordPress “your true digital hubâ€. in addition there are other features like easy support for infinite scrolling, enhanced photo editing features, e-mail posting capability, and a dozen other bug fixes.
So here are some reasons you must install the Jetpack plug-in for WordPress:
- It’s easy to set up and learn – People write blogs because they love to write and minimizing the time between writing posts and managing back-end aspects of the blog is critical. Jetpack couldn’t have made this easier considering the different benefits it provides. To install it, just go to Plug-ins –> Add New and then type “Jetpack†into the search box. It’ll be the first result. Hit “Install Now†and you’re ready to go.
- Site-stats for multi-author blogs – with a number of active authors at any given time, one issue that occurs is giving quick access to page view stats to writers and stats that are accurate. With Jetpack, the Site Stats is doing its job quickly and easily. Also, with the Jetpack Post Statistics Link companion plug-in, you have a link next to each post in the dashboard that sends you to the stats for that individual post.
- Commenting and subscriptions made simple – Instead of needing plug-ins to enhance comments and make it easy for people to subscribe to posts or the entire blog, just leave it to Jetpack to take care of it all. Just enable the commenting and subscription features and Jetpack makes configuring these options simpler by just hitting the “Configure†button.
- Sharing made easy – integrating your blog with social media has been made a ‘cakewalk’. With Jetpack it as simple as dragging and dropping from a list of the most popular sites.
- Spelling and Grammar check – this has been powered by After the Deadline, and gives you the power to avoid embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes. There are a number of options that you can toggle for the spell/grammar check system to focus on.
- Convenience of Shortcode – Jetpack brings the shortcode convenience of WordPress.com blogs to self-hosted blogs. The following are the Available shortcodes: [ archives ], [ audio ], [blip.tv ], [ dailymotion ], [ digg ], [ flickr ], [ googlevideo ], [ scribd ], [ slide ], [ slideshare ], [ soundcloud ], [ vimeo ], [ youtube ], [ polldaddy ], and [ wpvideo ( VideoPress )] – which shows different shortcode options for different services. Shortcodes allow even people who aren’t comfortable with HTML editors to embed and customize the look and feel of external media.
So that’s all folks! If you’re already a Jetpack user then share your experience using it in the comments below and if you aren’t then give it a try and tell us what you think in the comments!!