Yahoo has had a free media player for quite some time, but back in August of this year they updated it and renamed it Yahoo Web Player – and they’ve made it dead simple to use.

By inserting a single line of javascript into your page, it will detect links to MP3s and videos, then automatically create a play button beside the link and an unobtrusive slide-out player at the bottom left of your screen. That’s all there is to it.

It handles multiple links on the page and gathers them into a playlist (audio or video on a single player).

There are several parameters you can control by a bit of additional coding.

As of the writing of this post the player is still listed as Beta, with the promise of more features to come, but it’s been working just fine in the places I’ve been using it.

Integration with WordPress is very easy – I’ve got a full tutorial on it with a couple of different ways of inserting the Javascript. Members can find this in the Exclusive Content area.

And in case you’re wondering, the auto-embed feature of WordPress still works fine alongside this player. In fact, the Yahoo player is the perfect companion because WordPress auto-embed does not work with links, and this player does. So you could have an auto-embed video display in a post or page, along with some audio and video links that use the Yahoo player.