I am in the process of putting together a billiard video blog site to rival one of my (un-named, for now) competitors in the billiard space. I am using wordpress as the blog engine on a shared php hosting server. I spent considerable time reviewing the various YouTube Extension Plugins for WordPress and thought that others could benefit from my research.

The YouTube script extensions for wordpress can be broken out into two types. I’ll outline the top few YouTube wordpress plugins in each category.

Automatic YouTube Plugins for WordPress

This category will outline the (few) scripts freely available that will take the YouTube API and automatically generate wordpress posts from YouTube based on criteria that you define.

1. http://tubepress.net – TubePress (.net) is probably the best of breed automated youtube to wordpress post script available. The cons of this application is that it won’t work with most shared web hosting, as you need access to edit php.ini. If it does work with your web host, then this is the the script for automate the building of your youtube video blog. U P D A T E – I have moved over to godaddy hosting, and you have full control over your php.ini file. The tubepress script works perfectly – even without modification – since their default settings are already appropriate for the plugin to work. FANTASTIC.
2. http://www.wpvideotube.com/ – This is actually a pay script, BUT there is a lite free version. You get to enter three keywords and this script will go out evey so often and get videos. This is probably one of the better wordpress extensions for automatically posting videos. The paid version comes at two levels. It’s about $30 for 20 keywords, $40 for 50 keywords, and $60 for unlimited keywords and no link back.

YouTube Plugins to Insert YouTube Videos into WordPress Posts

1. http://www.jenst.se/2007/11/01/wp-youtube – Jens Tornell’s wordpress youtube plugin allows you to post youtube videos to wordpress very easily with just the video id. You can configure all youtube player options including size and color of player. This is one of the most highly recommended plugins designed for wordpress bloggers by a wordpress blogger.