How to Add VR Content like 360° Video, Photo Sphere and Street View in WordPress

We are living in the era of Virtual Reality (VR) where you can share the experience in a visual way. You can record your scuba diving or being inside a zoo and share the video with others. Those videos will make them feel that they are also present at that place. WordPress is the most used platform to share stories, how-tos, tutorial, photographs, videos and more. Sharing a VR content along with the article will be great inside WordPress. Recently, WordPress.com announced about introduction of VR Content in .com sites. And along with that, the news is also in round that the same VR shortcode will be available for self hosted WordPress with JetPack. Well, you don’t need to wait for the next JetPack release.

What is VR Content?

VR (Virtual Reality) is like feeling if you are at that place only. Imagine of being at that place where all the characters of the story that you are reading are present. Or reading some how-tos while seeing it happening around you at that time. These things are very much possible using VR Gear and Smartphone. You can make DIY VR Gear using Google Cardboard Project and experience this amazing piece of technology using your Smartphone.

Demo showing VR Content inside WordPress

VR Content and WordPress

If you like to include VR content like 360° videos, Photo Sphere, Panorama View, Street View etc. in your article, there are free WordPress plugins to do that.

WP VR View is a free plugin to embed VR Content inside the post or page. With the help of shortcode, you can insert the VR content like video, image and preview it on the front-end.

It uses Google’s VR View library to embed the content and show it on the post or page. A simple shortcode like [vrview video=”URL for 360 video .mp4 file”] will embed the video with 360° view.

Another free WordPress plugin you can use to embed 360° videos inside the content area. Once you embed the VR content, a link will appear on the screen to make it full screen. You can use Android App like Google Cardboard Camera to see the VR content on device.

With the help of shortcode, the VR files can be embedded anywhere on the site, specially inside the editor.

Note that the VR content can be visible on the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge etc.

VR Content Shortcode in Jetpack

After WordPress.com VR announcement, Toni Schneider from Automattic said that the next update of JetPack will make this feature available for self hosted WordPress too. So like other media embed options, you can embed VR content inside the post or page using JetPack plugin. Note that the one embedded file using JetPack will have a button as “Click to Explore 360°” at the top-right corner.