Lightview Plus is a really cool free plugin for WordPress that allows you to present YouTube videos in a different way on your WordPress blog. Very similar to how Lightbox displays images, you can display videos through a neat javascript hover box. Instead of just embedding YouTube videos in your blog post, you can now use this plugin to show the video in a hover box, giving your blog a different look than most blogs. Here’s a screenshot of the plugin in action on this blog…

Reasons I Like The Lightview Plus Plugin

1. When I embed more than 1 YouTube videon in a single blog post, it can get interesting because the reader can (if he wants to) click the play button on all the videos at once, essentially playing all the videos at the same time. Also, the page looks choppy while it’s loading because of all the data that is being pulled over from Google’s servers. This plugin just posts a screenshot of the video and doesn’t load the video until you click the screenshot, which then opens up the cool Lightview hover box.

2. I like to be different. Every blogger out there embeds YouTube videos in their blog posts. I don’t like my blog looking like everyone else’s. This new way to display YouTube videos gives me a uniqueness above other blogs in my niche.

3. I’ve always been a big fan of the original Lighbox project. And Lightview from Nick Stakenburg is almost identical to it. And the fact that I can not only display images through it, but now videos makes it even more appealing.

Check out the plugin and let me know what you think. To be honest i’m surprised more bloggers are not using this plugin. You would think it would be way more popular than it currently is. At the end of the day I think you will love the visual presence this plugin will have on your blog articles.