WordPress.com Adds Support for New Pocket Casts Block

WordPress.com has expanded its library of blocks to include a new Pocket Casts block that makes it easy to embed any show or episode in the WordPress editor. The block is branded for Pocket Casts and will display a podcast player and a selection of episodes when the show URL is selected. Alternatively, users can embed a specific episode by using its episode URL.

Automattic acquired Pocket Casts in 2021 after the app began struggling financially. At the time, Automattic’s Head of Apps, Eli Budelli, said the company would explore building deep integrations with WordPress.com and Pocket Casts by developing ways to make it easier to distribute and listen to podcasts. This new Pocket Casts block delivers on that promise with a solid integration for WordPress.

Last month, Pocket Casts open sourced its mobile apps under the Mozilla Public License, a GPL-compatible copyleft license that encourages contributors to share their modifications of the code under the same license. The code for Pocket Casts iOS and Pocket Casts Android is available on GitHub.

“We believe that podcasting can not and should not be controlled by Apple and Spotify, and instead support a diverse ecosystem of third-party clients,” the Pocket Casts team said when announcing its open source podcasting client. Users and contributors can now more easily report bugs, suggest new features, and submit pull requests.

Self-hosted WordPress users also have access to the new Pocket Casts block if using the latest version of WordPress. The Pocket Casts embed block variation was quietly added to Gutenberg 13.6, which was one of the releases that was rolled into WordPress core in 6.1.