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Magnify.net has announced Magnify Publisher, a plugin for WordPress and Movable Type, letting bloggers search for video and images directly from their blog editor and embed the video/image code in blog posts.

Magnify.net has always been a bit of a mystery to me. As a blogger, I like the idea of “curating” my own video channel (selecting interesting videos via keyword for my channel). But until recently, magnify.net has been a standalone service- rather than being able to integrate videos from a channel with my blog, my magnify channel was yet another profile/service to maintain. And after my initial “hey, I can be an internet program director” optimism, I simply abandoned my channel.

But with the new integration piece, I’ve got a dose of renewed optimism. I’ve been wanting to start posting more video content here on blogstring, but WordPress doesn’t make it easy. The WordPress wysiwyg editor seems to break video embed code no matter what I do.

Let’s take a look.

Step One: Installing the plugin

I already have a magnify.net account, so I’ll skip the signup. After that, you simply go to the plugin download page and grab the right files for your blog (again, movable type and wordpress are supported):

After downloading the zip file, installation is a little different from the standard WordPress plugin installation. Rather than just uploading the directory to the plugins folder on the remote folder, you’ll also need to add some javascript. If I’d read the installation guide, I would have known that. But come on, I don’t need no stinkin’ install guide. Okay, I do.

[Note: After the initial release, magnify.net has changed the way the WordPress installation works. Rather than having to upload files in two places, the current version of the magnify.net plugin works just like any other WordPress plugin. You can find detailed installation instructions here]

After the install, here’s what the wordpress editor looks like:

That little “m” is the magnify publisher icon. When clicked it yields:

Through this interface, you can search images and videos from:

• Woof TV
• YouTube
• Metacafe
• Veoh
• Blip.tv
• Clip Syndicate
• Dailymotion
• Google
• Yahoo
• AOL
• RedLasso

Step Two: Finding Videos

Searching the term “web startups” I get:

Clicking on a video gives you:

Through this screen, you can preview the video, see information about the video including tags and a description, and get embed code (with size, color, and layout options).

In addition to embedding remote videos, you can search for images (which searches flickr for non-copyrighted photos), upload your own video, and directly capture webcam video.

Step Three: Embedding the Video Code

Okay, so this didn’t warrant its own headline. You just click the Embed Now button and you’re done.

Using the publisher plugin, I searched for the term “magnify.net” and embedded the video below.

Summary

If you’re looking for an easy way to find, curate, and embed video in your blog posts, magnify.net’s publisher plugin is a no-brainer. Like all good web tools, it makes completing a task easier. Instead of searching video sites, watching videos, grabbing code then pasting it into your editor and likely failing anyway (hey, at least that’s been my experience), you can find and embed video right from your blog. All features aside, this things saves steps. That’s always good.

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