oEmbed.com - Open Format for Embedding Media

Although the website is minimalistic to a fault, oEmbed is a handy tool. It allows users to embed media on a website through posts with direct links.

It’s an open format which basically standardizes formats—video, picture, etc—bypassing the media’s API which means no parsing is necessary. So any link is turned into XML or JSON for easier embedding. Currently, Viddler, Pownce, Flickr, Qik and Revision3 are sites using oEmbed. Users can test it out for themselves using Viddler’s test form created specifically for that purpose. oEmbed makes accessing various formats much simpler. Users can simple post URLs to a site which in turn doesn’t have to go through the trouble of sorting through numerous different API’s.