Introducing VR and 360° Content for All WordPress.com Sites

Create and publish 360° videos and photos right on your site.

December 15, 2016

Toni Schneider

Virtual Reality is coming to WordPress.com! As of today, you can create and publish your own VR content on any WordPress.com site, starting with 360° photos and 360° videos (beta), and you can view regular photos and panoramas in VR. Our goal is to make publishing VR content as simple as publishing text or photos to the web — just add VR content to your site and anyone with a web browser can instantly enjoy it.

Let’s start with some examples.

headset-icon

Click the “play” button on any picture below and our VR viewer will load. On a regular desktop browser you can then “look around” using your mouse, including in gorgeous full-screen mode. On a phone browser or a webVR enabled desktop browser, you’ll see a VR button in the bottom right — select it and our viewer will render the content in full 3D mode inside your VR gear. So far we’ve tested with Cardboard, Gear, Daydream, Rift, and Vive.

360° photos:


Panoramas:


Here’s a panorama that the Mars Pathfinder took:

We’re already seeing examples of how VR can help tell stories. The Harvard Gazette is starting to use 360° photos to convey their stories, for example in Confronting the Refugee Crisis.

Augmenting your own posts with VR content is simple: Upload VR content to your WordPress site just like you would with any other content, decide if you want to present it in 360 or cinema (panorama) mode, and publish it using the “vr” shortcode:

[vr url=path-to-photo.jpg view=360]

or

[vr url=path-to-photo.jpg view=cinema]

Detailed instructions are here.

An easy way to start taking 360° photos today is to use the Google Street View app (for iOS and Android).

We can’t wait to see how WordPress.com users will use VR to tell their stories!

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64 Comments

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  1. Galois Dec 15th at 3:08 pm

    Reblogged this on Trasnochada and commented:
    Realidad Virtual y contenido en 360º en sitios web WordPress.com

    Liked by 4 people

  2. traveliciouslife Dec 15th at 3:29 pm

    Hey, exciting times ahead of us! I look forward to all content of this kind 🙂

    Liked by 10 people

  3. David Boles Dec 15th at 3:35 pm

    This is amazing, cogent, technology that bleeds just a little on the cutting edge. Well done! We’re in a whole new worldscape now — where the virtual becomes our reality.

    Liked by 8 people

  4. Doug Dec 15th at 3:53 pm

    Reblogged this on Doug and commented:

    Huge props to the team on this one!

    Liked by 6 people

  5. Cesar Abeid Dec 15th at 4:02 pm

    Reblogged this on Veni, Vidi, Velcro.

    Liked by 5 people

  6. Joan Enoch Dec 15th at 4:14 pm

    It’s probably just me but I can’t click and look around – can’t seem to get hold of the thing.

    Liked by 5 people

  7. Joan Enoch Dec 15th at 4:17 pm

    Well suppose I’ll get myself over to a forum because I can’t do it. Wouldn’t want only positive comments to land here – I reckon you need something of a cross-section.

    Liked by 5 people

  8. beerenitynowdoug Dec 15th at 4:23 pm

    Love smart technology

    Liked by 8 people

  9. Joan Enoch Dec 15th at 4:35 pm

    Ah! Panic off – got it – you click on anywhere in the picture and hold, and then move around, rather than click only on the icon and expect it to do things!

    Liked by 9 people

  10. Ludwig Dec 15th at 4:56 pm

    The 360 degree views work well. The panoramas do not. The view can be moved horizontally and vertically, but the height is too small. Zooming in does not work (yet?).

    Liked by 7 people

    • Toni Schneider Dec 15th at 6:27 pm

      We agree, the panoramas are too zoomed out. We’re adjusting that later today or tomorrow to make the experience more surrounding and immersive. Manual zooming might happen at some point in the future when we have a UI inside the VR viewer.

      Liked by 8 people

  11. PlayLegit Dec 15th at 4:58 pm

    This is awesome.

    Liked by 5 people

  12. Daniel MacKillican Dec 15th at 5:25 pm

    I’m looking forward to making use of this cool new feature.

    Liked by 4 people

  13. gsohn Dec 15th at 5:29 pm

    Reblogged this on Ich sag mal and commented:
    Super

    Liked by 4 people

  14. Bryan Dec 15th at 5:30 pm

    Niice! Do you have any idea when this will come to self-hosted WordPress sites (i.e. not wordpress.com sites)? Will it require a plugin, or will it be built into the core WordPress?

    Liked by 4 people

  15. Andrew Seal Dec 15th at 5:42 pm

    Amazing! Interesting that the first two examples work perfectly on Safari but the last three don’t. Any reason?

    Liked by 3 people

  16. Zox Zin Min Dec 15th at 5:55 pm

    Reblogged this on Zox Zin Min and commented:
    Great!

    Liked by 3 people

  17. Pedro Cassian Dec 15th at 6:16 pm

    should we compress the images? the street view images are like 20 mb, how do we keep file size at bay?

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Sascha Endlicher Dec 15th at 6:32 pm

    How will this functionality be provided to self hosted wordpress installations? Via Jetpack or another plugin or are there no plans for self hosted wordpress installations yet?

    Liked by 2 people

  19. Bruno Garcia Dec 15th at 7:00 pm

    Hello, that is great news for 360 content creators. How about placing hotspots? Is that feature will be available?

    Liked by 2 people

  20. Arrested Developments Dec 15th at 7:28 pm

    Reblogged this on Arrested Developments and commented:
    The 360 degree views work well

    Liked by 3 people

  21. Zara Dec 15th at 9:06 pm

    This is cool!

    Liked by 3 people

  22. aryotejo2013 Dec 15th at 9:21 pm

    Awesome

    Liked by 3 people

  23. sophiaalisaali Dec 15th at 9:53 pm

    Oh wow this is awesome 👏👍😍

    Liked by 3 people

  24. evelynkrieger Dec 15th at 10:08 pm

    I get a “Failed to Load VR Screen” message.

    Liked by 5 people

  25. ojedapaco Dec 15th at 11:09 pm

    That’s a great Christmas present! Looking forward to the self-hosted solution as well!

    Liked by 3 people

  26. wendyandcharles Dec 15th at 11:22 pm

    Reblogged this on Siefken Publications and commented:
    This is cool! Now if I could just figure out what it means!

    Liked by 2 people

  27. wendyandcharles Dec 15th at 11:23 pm

    I’m sure it would take a camera that can do the 360 vr too. I’m not sure how to do it but I will figure it out. very nice and can’t wait to see people’s pictures!

    Liked by 3 people

    • John Dec 17th at 1:18 pm

      You can use a phone and the Google Street View app to take 360 images – you rotate on the spot while the app takes lots of pictures, and it then merges them all together into a 360 image.

      Liked by 2 people

  28. હરીશ દવે (Harish Dave) Dec 16th at 2:07 am

    Viewed the post… An amazing tool that will boost the content of our WP Blogs. wonderful… Let me figure out how to use it…. Great boon it seems…

    Liked by 2 people

  29. Stefan Mey Dec 16th at 10:44 am

    Great! But do I get this right that this feature is only available for blogs hosted on wordpress.com? When will it be available for self-hosted wordpress sites? So far, I use a special plug-in to display VR-content on my travel blog (voyagewizard.com).

    Liked by 2 people

  30. thesciencegeek Dec 16th at 10:48 am

    The Mars panorama is literally out of world 😉

    The Science Geek

    Liked by 2 people

  31. Epic Chas Gamer Dec 16th at 12:34 pm

    Reblogged this on Charlieseverythingblog and commented:
    Cool VR and 360 stuff on WordPress.com 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  32. jamesfcarr Dec 16th at 2:18 pm

    This is great news! it’s something I’ve been waiting for and I will upload some of my 360 images immediately. Do you have any specs for optimum or maximum image dimensions?

    Liked by 2 people

  33. jamesfcarr Dec 16th at 4:06 pm

    I’m looking forward to this support advancing and improving soon. It would be nicer not to have to click to activate the 360 image, and to see the common features of other 360 image hosts, like ‘little planet’ view.

    Liked by 2 people

    • John Dec 17th at 1:16 pm

      Thanks James, we’re hoping to add more advanced features soon. We’ll likely stick with the click-to-activate for the moment though, as we feel it gives better performance with minimal overhead.

      Liked by 2 people

  34. Lara/Trace Dec 17th at 4:03 am

    Reblogged this on eyewitness and commented:
    VR? This is the NEW BIG THING

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Kiran Mathew Dec 17th at 6:26 pm

    Reblogged this on Kiranmathew and commented:
    Virtual reality… such an amazing concept! Explore an image from every angle as if you were there! Travel across the continent in the blink of an eye, or skyrocket up to mars in a flash!

    Now, WordPress bloggers are able to add 360° pictures and videos to further enhance all our readers’ experiences on this amazing platform.

    Liked by 3 people

  36. henrikmathiesen Dec 19th at 10:29 am

    Exciting!

    Liked by 2 people

  37. Jeff Hester Dec 20th at 2:21 am

    I’ve been working on incorporating 360VR images into my site (see https://socalhiker.net/hiking-devils-garden-loop-arches-national-park/ for an example), but one of the challenges has been the file size and the impact on page load time.

    It looks like this new shortcode is loading just a preview image until the user clicks the “play” button on the image. Is that correct? If so, I can’t wait until this shows up in Jetpack!

    I

    Liked by 2 people

    • John Jan 10th at 10:55 am

      Yes, the viewer is designed to keep the initial loading time as small as possible and only a preview is shown until activated. It should be available in the next version of Jetpack

      Liked by 2 people

  38. tellthetruth1 Dec 20th at 12:45 pm

    The BBC have been using the video version of this for some time. It’s well clever 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  39. Anna Dec 20th at 10:11 pm

    I’m personally not a fan of 360 degree videos (something exciting happens and I’m always looking at the floor, for instance) but the 360 degree photos are beautiful! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  40. williamsburgluxury Dec 21st at 2:58 am

    I was successful with the vr code for one 360 photo, but how do you do it for a gallery of 360 photos?

    Liked by 2 people

  41. watchmediablog Dec 21st at 10:28 am

    I can’t wait to see the amazing ways people will be using this in their blogs.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. tdsworld14 Dec 22nd at 12:42 pm

    Virtual reality… such an amazing concept! Explore an image from every angle as if you were there! Travel across the continent in the blink of an eye, or skyrocket up to mars in a flash!

    Now, WordPress bloggers are able to add 360° pictures and videos to further enhance all our readers’ experiences on this amazing platform.

    Liked by 2 people

  43. marymhm Jan 6th at 11:23 pm

    Thank you for responding to my cry for help, but I still do not know who to send the request to. If you can give me where o ask for help, I will be grateful. Yes, my WP account is at the gmail account. I just do not know how to ask support for help because I do not know who to ask or what address to send it to. I am still looking for possible early WP correspondence that tells me when I opened my WP account. Please help if you can. Mary H. Moore

    Liked by 1 person

    • Ben Huberman Jan 12th at 5:41 pm

      Hello! Sorry to hear you still can’t access your account. We sent further instructions to the email address associated with your WordPress.com account, but in case you haven’t found it or the problem persists regardless, feel free to contact us at help@wordpress.com. Thanks, and I’m sure we’ll get it all sorted out.

      Liked by 1 person

  44. Reggae Muse Jan 9th at 6:53 pm

    Good morning

    I am still trying to access my reggaemuse.wordpress.com blog

    Please

    Maxine alias Akachi Afrika

    Maxine

    On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 11:24 AM, The WordPress.com Blog wrote:

    > Toni Schneider posted: “Virtual Reality is coming to WordPress.com! As of > today, you can create and publish your own VR content on any WordPress.com > site, starting with 360° photos and 360° videos (beta), and you can > view regular photos and panoramas in VR. Our goal is to make p” >

    Liked by 1 person

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