I use a couple of WordPress plugins to assist in displaying multimedia content on Impolite Company and blogan.net.

• Audio player. Audio player creates an inline player for mp3 files. Using it is simple:

  [audio:hillarylaugh.mp3]

  [audio:https://brentlogan.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/hillarylaugh.mp3]

  The filename after “audio:” is either in a defined directory on your web host or can be an absolute web address to anywhere on the Internet. Remember, hot linking to someone else’s mp3 file is bad form.

• Easy tube. Easy tube embeds a YouTube video in a post. Using it is similar to audioplayer:

  [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXAH3WVhhwg]

  The web address after “youtube:” is the YouTube address of the video, that is, the address that shows in your browser’s address bar.

Both plugins can be used in WordPress’ visual editor or HTML editor — neither converts the square brackets to anything else.

What plugins do you use to help display multimedia content on your blog?

Next up: stopping spam.

Update. I’m now using Viper’s Video Quicktags to display YouTube and other videos.

Update 2. Embedding of videos is being added to the WordPress core for version 2.9 — no plugin needed.