Consumer News / Opinion on JetPack
I’m looking at my blog’s visitor statistics today (the day I wrote this) and noticed this big blue and green banner notice saying that all future updates to the WordPress.com stats package for your self-hosted blog will only be included in the JetPack add-on package.
I’m not reacting well to this enforced method of retaining my statistics package in my WordPress blog.
Finding yourself forced into a package that is overly redundant with processes that I already employ feels very much like I’m using a Microsoft product and being told it’s this or nothing. I have always preferred the power of choice myself.
Show me something that makes me want it, and I’ll be there. But not this way.
As if my day isn’t already busy enough, I now have to decide to either blow off my WordPress.com stats package or look into JetPack to see what plugins I have to dump to adopt this thing that I originally did not feel that I needed when it first came out.
The verbiage for JetPack is the same as the WordPress.com stats package… it will put “no additional load on your server.” Yet I’ve proven to myself, that my own interaction (loggin in and editing) with my site is slowed down considerably when the stats package is in place. When I disable it, my response time is easily 1/2 that. But then again, I don’t use a CDN right now. (That’s for another day… CDN’s.)
What does the plugin JetPack have?
- It includes the WP.me URL shortner. (I have a shortner)
- Easily embed media from sites like YouTube, Digg, and Vimeo. (Got that covered.)
- Ah, for the mathematically inclined, you can supposedly add equations to your site.
- You can show recent tweets… (Had, don’t need.)
- Readers can share posts via their favorite methodology. (Already have a superior process… don’t need that.)
- Spell checker… don’t need that. FireFox does that for me.
- It uses the power of ‘the cloud.’ Great… 75% chance of rain.
All that, but after 223 reviews/ratings, this all-in-one package has a 3 out of 5 stars rating. That, in my book, is not great. If there are that many issues to cause such a lackluster review score, I’m leary.
My Prediction on More Enforcement
For me, if that’s the way it is, I’m going to PREDICT that somewhere down the road, they will pull the functionality of the present version of the WordPress.com stats plugin, forcing you to even abandon the plugin altogether. I could be wrong, but since they’re acting like Microsoft, well, I am anticipating such.
Considering that after being on the blog market since mid-February, and only having just under 35k downloads, that, to me, isn’t a big fanfare for the JetPack plugin. If you look at other plugins that people do love using on their WordPress self-hosted blogs, you can see the name and +number of downloads. That is what says something to this end-user.
Most Popular WordPress Plugins
- All in One SEO Pack -Downloaded 8,489,715 times
- Google XML Sitemaps -Downloaded 5,822,828 times
- Contact Form 7 -Downloaded 4,564,486 times
- NextGEN Gallery -Downloaded 3,790,668 times
- WordPress.com Stats -Downloaded 2,662,742 times
- WPtouch -Downloaded 2,481,918 times
And all those plugins have 4 and up out of 5 star reviews… that is, except for the Stats download package. And For WPTouch to be in this list, is impressive, as they haven’t been around as long as some of the other packages.
-
What Does JetPack Mean To Me?
So this means that I either have bid farewell to the WordPress.com stats package… which only has one real feature that holds any interest for me, and I’ll have to figure out how to ascertain that feature for myself in some other fashion. (Yes, I have Google Analytics, but it actually falls short on this one feature I tend to depend on in the other package. And yes, I’m being circuitous in referring to what feature I’m talking about. I feel like it’s a good business advantage to my site… sorry.) My blogging world peers whom I trust and chat with know what I’m chatting about.
On the other side of the coin, I am going to say this as a developer: I get why they’re pulling everything into one package. Ease of support, maintenance and integration.
=
With that said:
So heads up gang… there’s change in town and you’ll have to make the decision as to whether you want to uninstall the trusty work-horse plugins you already use for this iffy new plug-in, or just drop one more plug-in that’s about to become obsolete for those of us rebels that don’t want to comply with the Borg way of doing things.
–
– BruSimm on Twitter & Facebook
- -
About Bruce Simmons
I've been writing newsletters since 1999. Of late, I've been focusing on the entertainment consumer angle on mostly the sci-fi, fantasy and action genres of TV, movies and books.
{ 0 comments… add one now }