Matt pointed out that Automattic has purchased Gravatar, the globally recognizable avatar service. Om speaks of the economics and Matt’s cagy, but it’s hard not to see the possibility of creating a larger identity solution around this. WordPress’ market penetration is huge, a service that connects those nearly two million blogs could offer real value, especially in connection with Automattic’s Akismet.
Aside: now that Gravitar’s reliability is up, I’ll probably get Sexy Comments running here soon.