It’s been a number of years since I created my YouTube Embed WordPress plugin. It’s been extremely popular and I’ve learnt a huge amount from it but now my attention is now turning to the future.

For a while I’ve been thinking about creating a new plugin that will embed YouTube videos. And Facebook videos. And Vimeo, Dailymotion and Hulu. And, indeed, any that you care to name. Basically, offering the best features of YouTube Embed but for all the video embeds you can think of. It would cast off some the features that are more for the minority of users and concentrate on what people want – lots of control with multiple profiles.

So, with further details below, I’d like to know what you think! Please leave any comments, suggestions, whatever in the comments and they’ll be greatly appreciated!

Development has started – follow the progress here!

Key Features

• Embed videos with a single shortcode, which can be modified by the user. This will allow it to work alongside existing plugins, including the built in WordPress oEmbed method.
• As with YouTube Embed you can set up default profiles – you can have one for all video embeds or separate ones for different embed types (e.g. one for YouTube, one for Facebook and one for anything else).
• Selectable code validity – depending on your theme you can set it to be valid HTML 5, XHTML, etc. Or just select a more flexible option that may not validate but gives maximum compatibility.
• The plugin will fit in with the default look and feel of WordPress, looking like something that came with it by default. No ads, no banners and no odd colours.
• Compatible with a number of existing plugins to add additional functionality – for example, Shortcake to add a visual replacement for the shortcode or Video SEO for WordPress SEO.
• Automatic generation of video metadata for SEO.

Why not oEmbed?

WordPress already uses oEmbed to display videos. Simply place the video URL on the page and it will show up. That’s great, but oEmbed can only pass on parameters specified in the URL – many video functions (particularly YouTube) can’t be controlled this way. Indeed, it would means that we couldn’t use profiles and each video would have to include its own specific parameters. So oEmbed is a nice, simple solution but not particularly flexible. By using a shortcode method we can pass on any required information and, of course, use profiles to control default behaviour.

Premium Options

As I said before, this plugin would jettison a lot of the minority features. But that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. My plan, long term, is to add a feature to be able to add premium add-ons. These would include lesser video sites as well as features. Prices would be low to make them more attractive.