Previously, people could place the YouTube player on their personal Web sites and view videos from the YouTube library. But they had little control over how the videos were displayed on their sites and were unable to play videos they created themselves or send comments back to YouTube about what they had watched.

Now, people will be able to customize the YouTube player, comment and send YouTube the videos they make – all from their own Web sites and cell phones.

Users even can share animated monsters they create on their personal computers.

Redwood City-based Electronic Arts has already incorporated the advanced YouTube feature into its upcoming video game Spore, in which players design their own horrific creatures. As a result, gamers will be able to share images of their ogres with YouTube users everywhere when it hits stores in September.

That ought to please Spore aficionados, according to Will Wright, an Electronic Arts vice president and designer.

“By allowing players to seamlessly broadcast their experiences on YouTube, we’re giving the community even more tools to easily create and share their content,” he said in prepared comments that YouTube has posted on its Web site. The new service was offered in large part because many people want to put a personal touch on their video sharing, said Jim Patterson, YouTube’s product manager.

“Ultimately, they want to make it their own,” he said. “They want to use it in ways you couldn’t imagine.”

So how does YouTube benefit from the deal?

Aside from noting that the new service should make YouTube accessible to a vast new audience worldwide, Patterson demurred on that point.

“Trying to make money with the APIs now isn’t our focus,” he said. “We’ll work that stuff out.”

In fact, one feature of the new service allows people to customize the way the YouTube video player appears on their own Web sites so it fits more with their sites’ designs. That allows people to remove some of the YouTube identifiers that normally appear on the player.

Still, a small company emblem will remain so everyone can tell it’s YouTube’s technology, Patterson said. Moreover, by letting people use the video-sharing service in ways they couldn’t before, YouTube is likely to become much more widely used, he noted. As a result, “it does get the YouTube brand out there,” he said.