Magnify.net has introduced a plugin for Movable Type and WordPress that attempts to minimize the effort required to add multimedia content to a blog. Magnify.net is a video discovery and broadcast platform that provides a hosted framework for video distribution.

The plugin, called Magnify Publisher, allows bloggers to search and embed content from over a dozen media sites including YouTube and Flickr without ever leaving their blog’s admin panel. Publisher also allows bloggers to upload videos from their computer, and to record clips on a webcam (sort of like seesmic). After choosing a video or picture, users are free to rearrange and resize their media from within their blog’s WYSIWYG editor.

Magnify’s CEO Steve Rosenbaum sees the plugin as a gateway to an online ecosystem where bloggers are the curators of multimedia. While there are a number of other blogging plugins that offer similar functionality, Rosenbaum says that Magnify Publisher is the first to integrate media search, upload, and webcam features. Magnify hopes that this combination will spur bloggers to regularly include more multimedia content in their posts.

I’m a little less optimistic. The plugin works fairly well and is easy to use (though the generic gray buttons really need a facelift), but it isn’t going to pave the way for a media revolution. Bloggers don’t typically include loads of media in their posts because it can be distracting – not because it is overly difficult to find an appropriate photo or upload a YouTube video. That said, Publisher is a handy tool that cuts out tedious steps and will appeal to many bloggers who aren’t tech-savy enough to fiddle with embed codes. Just don’t expect it to change the face of blogging forever.

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A few weeks ago YouTube released a more powerful set of APIs that allow web developers to create services that upload, watch, search, and comment on videos remotely.

Magnify, the video channel service recently focused on social networking, has been hustling to be the first to implement these APIs. What they’ve come up with is a widget called VidyUp (like gitty up, get it?).

Site owners can place the VidyUp widget on their pages to solicit videos from visitors. For example, we could use it here on TechCrunch if we wanted to hold a video contest. Instead of telling everyone to upload their videos directly to YouTube then send us the links via email, we could just embed a VidyUp widget and all videos uploaded through it would be handled in the appropriate manner (emailed to us, added to a particular page, etc).

All in all, it’s actually a decent little widget, although I’m sure just being the first to build something with the APIs was Magnify’s primary goal. The company says it won’t try to monetize the widget, but if site owners get a lot of use out of it, they will be able to turn their visitors’ uploaded videos into a full-fledged Magnify channel.

Update: we had the widget included in the post but removed it because it wasn’t playing nice with Wordpress.

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Magnify lets Web publishers assemble videos from across the Web—YouTube, AOL, Veoh—and show it in the embeddable Magnify player. Websites use Magnify to create video channels associated with their content or the interests of their audience members. Now those viewers can create profiles within each channel and “friend” others with similar interests. They can also track and subscribe to the activity streams of other members, so they will know when their new “friends” rate, tag, share, or comment on a video. With this release, Magnify is also integrating with Twitter, Mogulus, and Flickr. Magnify splits ad revenues 50/50 with the sites. It is offering Pro and Enterprise versions as well.

Creating social networks around videos is going to be tough. For one thing, Magnify is requiring people to create a different profile for each video channel instead of letting them create one profile that works on any Magnify channel. Making people create multiple profiles is a bad idea and might make this whole effort a non-starter. It would be better to leverage its existing network of video channels across different sites.

But there is a bigger issue here. Are people who watch the same videos really part of a community? In most cases, I would argue that they are not. Think about the videos you watch on the Web. They tend to be a random assortment—something you see here on TechCrunch or that a friend put on your SuperWall on Facebook. Socializing around video is better done in existing social networks with your real friends. It is also a more natural way to discover videos.

Magnify wants to change this by letting Websites create dedicated video channels around a theme or set of interests. That’s fine. We need better video programming on the Web. And letting viewers rate, tag, and leave comments on those videos is important. But for most people that is as much interaction as they are going to want. They already belong to one or more social networks that incorporate video just fine. They don’t need to join a new one that is limited to people who watch just one channel. That would be like joining the NBC or TNT social network. Am I wrong?

Update: Magnify CEO Steve Rosenbaum responds:

I think something may have gotten lost in translation -

NBC or TNT are General Interest ‘mass’ networks who’s viewers have little in common – other than a show they may like.

Our channels already *are* communities… We have 250,000 registered users across the networks. If we had them each fill out ‘one’ profile, then we would be asking the Fly Fishermen what Cars they race, or the Race Car drivers what Tribe they’re from.

These are focused, vertical, fast growing communities. Video is the way they talk to each other, and what they talk about.

So it’s not that we’re “adding” social networking, but rather that we’re letting folks with 250,000 profiles engage and talk to each other…

Fair enough, except that those 250,000 people can’t talk to each other. They can only talk to other people in their viewing cohort. Maybe the NBC analogy was too broad. But even if I like watching funny cat videos, that doesn’t mean I want to talk to total strangers who also like to watch funny cat videos. I’d rather annoy my friends on Facebook with those videos.

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