Podcaster Plus Blocks is a WordPress plugin designed to give podcasters powerful and flexible tools to showcase their episodes directly on their WordPress website. It features a suite of nine customizable blocks that pull data from your podcast’s RSS feed, allowing you to create beautiful, bespoke audio players and rich show note layouts with ease using the WordPress block editor.

It’s for any podcaster using WordPress who wants:

• More control over how their podcast player looks and functions.
• To save time creating engaging show notes.
• A seamless, WordPress-native experience for managing their podcast presentation.
• To move beyond generic, third-party embeddable players.

• Unmatched Customization: Build audio players that perfectly match your brand using individual block components.
• Streamlined Workflow: Automatically pull episode titles, descriptions, and images from your RSS feed to populate your posts.
• WordPress Native: Feels right at home within the WordPress block editor and pattern system.
• Enhanced Engagement: Create richer, more visually appealing show notes to keep listeners on your site.

Podcaster Plus is co-founded by Dan Maby and Nathan Wrigley. Dan is a WordPress developer with 20 years of experience and runs the #WPLDN events. Nathan has been in the WordPress community for 18 years and is known for the WP Builds and WP Tavern podcasts. We're passionate about both WordPress and podcasting!

You simply provide your podcast’s RSS feed URL in the plugin settings. Our “Episode Selector” modal then allows you to browse your episodes, select one, and choose how its content (title, image, description, player) is inserted into your WordPress post or page using our blocks and pre-designed patterns.

• There are three “content” blocks: Episode Title, Episode Description, and Episode Image, which render data from your feed using default WordPress blocks where appropriate.
• Then, there are six “atomised audio player” blocks: Play Button, Playback Speed, Skip Forwards, Skip Backwards, Volume, and Progress Bar. These allow you to construct a fully custom audio player.

Yes! The six audio player blocks are like building bricks. You can arrange them, style them individually using block controls, and save your custom layouts as WordPress patterns for easy reuse. We also bundle several pre-made player patterns to get you started.

Absolutely. Podcaster Plus Blocks is designed to be “block theme first,” integrating with theme.json for styling. However, it also provides robust support and styling options for classic WordPress themes.

Podcaster Plus Blocks is currently in a closed beta phase. During this beta, the plugin is free to use for selected participants. We’re focused on gathering feedback to make it the best it can be.

We’d love for you to join! Please sign up using the form on our site here: podcasterplus.com/go. We’ll be in touch with details.

You’ll need a self-hosted WordPress website and an existing podcast with an RSS feed. We’ll provide more specific compatibility details to beta testers.

Beta testers will have access to support channels (details to be provided upon acceptance) where they can ask questions, report issues, and provide feedback directly to us. Your input is invaluable!

Yes! We’re looking for passionate podcasters and WordPress enthusiasts to become founding affiliates for Podcaster Plus Blocks. If you’re interested in partnering with us and earning by sharing our plugin with your audience, please indicate your interest on the sign-up form on our site: podcasterplus.com/go. We’ll send you mor e information as the program develops.

Podcaster Plus Blocks is our foundational product and our introduction to the community. Our long-term vision is to develop Podcaster Plus into a comprehensive podcast hosting platform with a layer of powerful automation tools on top. These tools will include features like guest booking, show note automation, live chat, email marketing, and social media automation, designed to streamline a podcaster's entire workflow.

Yes, that's a key part of the plan. Using our future hosting service will unlock deeper integrations between the WordPress plugin and the automation tools, offering a fully managed and connected podcasting environment.