Last Updated on April 20, 2020

What are plugins?

Plugins are tools which extend the functionality of the main software they are designed for. As for blogging platforms, probably WordPress has the biggest number of available plugins. They are authored by various developers and they are free to download and use with your blog.

You don’t have to search the net for such tools, as there are some really good resources out there which gather all the info in one place. One of them is wp-plugins.net, a comprehensive, easy to use, WordPress plugins database. It is permanently updated, and if you have developed a plugin yourself, you can submit it there.

Another great resource is the WordPress official site, which offers a list of plugins sorted by categories, and a lot of links to WP plugin developers sites.

Plugins for video blogging

As video blogging, or vlogging is growing very fast, developers are keeping the pace by coming up with plugins for video blogs:

1. Video Blogger plugin allows for simple video blogging of content hosted by Google Video, YouTube, DailyMotion and vSocial. It requires WordPress 2.0

2. WordPress/YouTube Video Gallery Plugin – easy to install and to use, this plugin allows you to create a cool video gallery on your blog.

3. VideoPop: this plugin allows you to create links to videos which open in a popup window. It supports a lot of video formats and dimensions.

4. WP-FLV: a WordPress plugin for inserting Flash movies inside a blog post. The author gives detailed instructions for installation and use.

5. Extreme Video Plugin: it offers support for YouTube, Google Advanced Player, QuickTime and it has customizable classes for each type of video.

6. Video Comments: this plugin allows you to post video in your blog and allows comments to be made on it in-time. A popup window displays the video and commenting area; as a video is viewed the comments associated with a current video time will be displayed, viewers can also see all comments and jump to a specific point in time.

7. vPIP plugin Video Playing In Place: this is a plugin for WordPress MU. It dynamically embeds a video after the viewer clicks on the link, thus making the page to load quickly with just image and text links. Then when the viewer clicks one of the video links, it’s replaced with the embedded video. Clicking on another video link closes the prior embedded video and opens the new one selected.

8. Digg Video Thumbnails plugin: anyone running a videoblog on WordPress can install this plugin, get in touch with Digg, and start seeing thumbnails of their videos show up next to their Digg stories.

9. QuickTime embedding plugin: useful for a better control over your blog pages layout, when using QuickTime movies.

If you have experience with any of these video plugins, or you know some others which are worth trying, please leave a comment here, so we all can enjoy your experience.