New oEmbed Providers Coming in WordPress 4.0

photo credit: Scorpions and Centaurs – cc

WordPress 4.0 is on track to introduce several new oEmbed providers, according to the most recent core report from Mike Schroder. The following sites and services have been added to the whitelist of oEmbed providers:

TED talks

Mixcloud

CollegeHumor.com

Issuu

Polldaddy’s short URL format

YouTube playlist URLs

The process of getting added to the whitelist of providers is not as easy as it seems. The design decision section of the WordPress core handbook states that the provider must be an established, popular, and trusted site. It must also properly and fully implement the oEmbed specification.

When determining how established and popular a service is, there are nine questions to consider, i.e. “If similar services are already supported, how does this service compare in terms of size, features, and backing?” and “Does the service make an effort to build relationships with developers, such as through robust APIs?” New oEmbed service providers that are proposed for inclusion in core will have to answer these considerations to ensure that it’s not a hasty, shortsighted addition.

However, if a site supports oEmbed, anyone can add the site and URL format to the internal whitelist by calling wp_oembed_add_provider(). Many plugins take this route when the provider hasn’t yet been added to core. For example, a trac ticket was submitted for adding oembed support for CodePen. Since the site needs time to become established and popular, a simple plugin with one line of code uses the wp_oembed_add_provider() method to add support in the meantime. This helps to gauge the community’s interest before whitelisting the provider.

Of the six new providers listed above, the YouTube playlist URLs addition is likely to have the broadest appeal, given YouTube’s massive user base. You’ll be able to make use of the new oEmbed providers as soon as WordPress 4.0 ships. A beta is expected around the first week of July. The official release is targeted for the week of August 25.