Automattic Launches Jetpack 2.0 For Self-Hosted WordPress Sites, Includes Free WP.com Image Offloading, Infinite Scroll & More

Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress content management and blogging platform, just launched Jetpack 2.0, which brings a number of WordPress.com features to self-hosted WordPress installs. The promise of Jetpack has always been to bring more of the features from the hosted WordPress.com platform to those who want full control over their servers and this new version finally includes some of the most requested features, including post by email, Infinite Scroll and the ability to connect your blog directly to your favorite social networks and have all your posts broadcast to several networks automatically.

One of the most interesting new features in Jetpack 2.0, though, is Jetpack Photon. WordPress.com automatically optimizes photos on its hosted sites depending on the reader’s device, so your high-resolution Retina display doesn’t have to show some fuzzy, low-res image. With Photon, self-hosted WordPress sites now get the same feature. The company says, every image on your site becomes a “fully dynamic object that themes and plugins can transform to their heart’s content without killing your server.” Indeed, the really interesting aspect of this service is that it uses the global WordPress.com cloud to host your images.

All of the other new features are pretty self-explanatory: Post by Email lets you create a private email address for your blog to post text, videos and images directly to your blog without having to log in to the site and Infinite Scroll brings – well – infinite scroll to your sites (assuming your themes support it).

So far, Automattic says, Jetpack has been downloaded over 3 million times. If you host your own WordPress site, it’s probably worth a look, even if you are just interested in Photon, which could easily help you cut down on your hosting bills.