Bluberry PowerPress

Plugin name: Bluberry PowerPress (available by request from consult@illinois.edu)

Plugin creator’s site: https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress/

This plugin is used to publish podcasts and other multimedia offerings on publish.illinois.edu.

It’s not visible by default; request it from the Publish.illinois.edu team if you’d like for Bluberry PowerPress to be turned on for your publish.illinois.edu site.

Although Bluberry’s interface and documentation will strongly give the impression that you’re required to use their hosting system and pay for it, a paid version using their hosting is not required.

Tech Services encourages people who would like to host podcasts to store their media files on U of I Box or Kaltura and link to them from those locations instead.

When Bluberry PowerPress is enabled, you’ll see a “Podcast Episode” box below the content box.

Create a direct link to your file, such as https://uofi.box.com/shared/static/bt41rf7ujvf2e77m07aa128qwz4kbwqq.mp4 , and paste it in the “Media URL” field.

Click the Verify URL button. However, particularly for Box users, don’t be surprised if the Verify URL button doesn’t work — many systems are configured in a way that won’t respond to the query Bluberry makes, because that type of query is also commonly used by security attacks and has often been turned off on hosting servers. Even if the Verify URL button doesn’t work, you can save the file and preview your page in another window to see whether the link succeeds.