Right now, if you’re using the VideoPress plugin on your self-hosted WordPress blog, you have to be signed in to your WordPress.com account to actually upload and work with your videos — not a huge deal, but not as streamlined as it could be.

Coming soon, that’s going to change: VideoPress is joining the Jetpack family, and will use the Jetpack API for authentication. (Yet another reason to install Jetpack if you haven’t already!)

What does this actually mean? In a nutshell:

• The current VideoPress plugin just provides you with an iFrame that opens up the WordPress.com video administration tools. You have to be logged in to WordPress.com to use it, and so do any other people who want to upload videos to your site.
• The Jetpack plugin hooks into WordPress.com, giving your self-hosted site access to sweet .com features like social sharing and tiled media galleries without having to be constantly logged in to WordPress.com. Jetpack takes care of all the authentication for you, so you can focus on your site.
• By making VideoPress part of Jetpack, we give it that same ability . You’ll be able to upload and work with video without being logged in to WordPress.com, because Jetpack will be your middleman.

Not only will this simplify the process of using VideoPress, it will also allow us to integrate VideoPress with the spiffy new Media Manager that shipped with WordPress 3.5:

If you use the VideoPress plugin, be sure to install Jetpack so you can take advantage of these improvements. Keep an eye on this blog and on the Jetpack Blog, and be the first two know when the VideoPress/Jetpack marriage is finalized!