Automattic announced a big update to VideoPress, its service that powers videos on WordPress.com and Jetpack-connected self-hosted WordPress sites.

It describes the new generation of VideoPress as “dynamic, responsive, and lightning fast”.

“Out of the box, the new VideoPress is lightweight and responsive for beautiful playback on any screen, from smartphones to desktops,” explains Guillermo Rauch on the WordPress blog. “VideoPress works on all modern browsers and devices, and gives blog and site authors the power to engage their audiences no matter where they are. Not only do videos look amazing on WordPress sites, but you can also embed your videos anywhere on the web — other websites, social media, chat services — by using a permalink or a snippet of code.”

According to the announcement, VideoPress is optimized for speed, taking up far less space. Posts with video content should laod faster, and that should only help blogs in SEO. Search engines do like fast sites. It should help mobile users a great deal too, particularly when their connections aren’t running as well as they’d like.

“The new VideoPress puts your content front and center. The player is ad-free and unbranded to ensure your videos look and feel like an integral part of your website or blog, not like they belong to a third-party video platform. Unlike other video hosting services, VideoPress starts and ends on your video, keeping traffic on your site and giving you full control over the content to which your visitors are exposed.”

There’s also a new feature called “Seek” that lets you skim through videos:

They’ve also made it easier to share and embed videos with new options, including starting playback at specific times, looping, and autoplay:

VideoPress is available under Premium and Business plans.

Image via WordPress