In Mantis 1.1.x we have added a feature to integrate with the gravatar, a global avatar service allowing users to define their avatar once and use it from any websites that support the service. Although it was neat service, it was having some struggles with scalability. It is great to see that Automattic (the company behind WordPress) has acquired gravatar. According to the announcement, the service has already been migrated to WordPress servers and is already serving avatars three times faster than the original service. Avatar had 115K avatars, after acquisition it is now merged with WordPress pool of over 1M avatars.