This is great news for users of Gravatar (like myself) since the Gravatar system seemed to not be able to scale their system on their own. For those who dont know, Automattic is the company behind WordPress (both the application and the .com site), Akismet and bbPress. While I can’t say I always agree with some of their decisions regarding feature support, I can’t argue with their ability to scale a service.
I’ve already taken advantage of some of the new features offered by the free service, and linked all three of my email addresses (One personal, and two versions of my Business address). And set separate images on the personal and business accounts.
I think its a good move, and I’m looking forward to seeing where Automattic takes the service in the near future.