I Built a Plugin That Turns Blog Posts Into Podcasts

Sam Kütt — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 12:40:28 +0000

So here's the thing... I've been running WordPress blogs for years, and recently I started wondering: "What if I could give my readers the option to listen to my content as a natural conversation instead of just reading it?"

You know how your readers are always multitasking? Commuting, working out, doing chores? I wanted to give them a way to consume my content during those times when they can't stare at a screen.

The "Aha!" Moment

I was listening to a podcast (ironically, while doing dishes) when it hit me: most of the podcasts I enjoy are basically just people having conversations about ideas that could easily be written articles. So why not flip it around? What if I could take my blog content and automatically turn it into a natural conversation between two AI voices that sound completely human?

As a WordPress site owner, I wanted to offer my audience more ways to engage with my content without having to completely change my writing workflow.

But before diving into building anything, I wanted to make sure this wasn't just my weird idea. So I did some digging around Facebook groups, Twitter, and various online communities. Turns out, tons of bloggers and content creators were asking for exactly this... how to repurpose their written content into audio format without the hassle of recording actual podcasts.

That validation gave me the push I needed. Post2Podcast was born.

What Actually Happens Behind the Scenes

The plugin is pretty straightforward in concept but surprisingly tricky in execution. Here's the basic flow:

You write your WordPress post like normal
Hit a button (literally just one button)
The plugin grabs your content, does some AI magic
Two human sounding AI voices have a natural conversation about your content
Spits out an MP3 file and embeds a player right in your post

The hardest part wasn't the WordPress integration... that's pretty well documented territory. The real challenge was making two AI voices sound like they're having a genuine conversation about your content, not just reading it out loud like robots.

The Technical Bits (For Those Who Care)

I won't bore you with every implementation detail, but here are the interesting challenges I ran into:

Text preprocessing: Blog posts aren't written for conversation. URLs, code snippets, weird formatting... all of that needs to be handled gracefully so the AI voices can discuss it naturally. I spent way too much time figuring out how to make blog articles to sound natural in a conversation.

Conversation flow: This was the big one. Making two AI voices sound like they're genuinely discussing your content rather than just taking turns reading paragraphs. They need to ask each other questions, build on points, and sound like real people who actually care about the topic.

WordPress integration: Making sure it plays nice with different themes, doesn't break existing functionality, and handles edge cases. You know, the usual WordPress plugin headaches.

Who's Actually Using This?

I've been testing it with fellow WordPress site owners running different types of content:

Long form blog posts: Perfect for giving readers an alternative way to consume in-depth articles during their commute, and the conversation format makes complex topics more digestible
Tutorial content: Surprisingly effective when two voices walk through instructions together, giving your readers an audio companion to your written guides
News/update posts: The back and forth discussion format makes even dry updates more engaging for your audience

The feedback has been interesting. Some bloggers love how it increases their content's accessibility and time on page metrics. Others appreciate having an easy way to repurpose their written content into audio format without recording anything themselves.

The Accessibility Angle I Didn't Expect

One thing I didn't anticipate was how useful this would be for accessibility. I've heard from people with dyslexia and visual impairments who find the audio version much easier to consume than text. It wasn't my primary motivation, but it's honestly become one of the most rewarding aspects of the project.

Where It's Going

Right now I'm in beta mode, trying to iron out the weird edge cases and see how the AI conversation system performs with different types of content. The goal isn't to replace reading... it's just to give people options and make content more engaging through natural dialogue.

I'm also working on some features that could be pretty cool:

Different conversation styles (casual vs professional discussion)
Better handling of technical content with the AI voices explaining complex concepts
Pro tier with our own dedicated servers for faster processing
Self-hosting option from our GitHub repo once the plugin gets approved by WordPress

The hosting thing is interesting because AI processing isn't cheap. The free tier works great for testing, but for heavy usage, having dedicated servers makes a huge difference in speed and reliability.

Try It Out

If you're a WordPress site owner and this sounds like something that could benefit your readers, I've got a beta program running. Fair warning: it's still rough around the edges, but it works and your readers will have that embedded MP3 player right at the top of your posts.

Signup for Beta access: https://post2podcast.xyz/

Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJvivUrKDrc&ab_channel=SpreadOutAI

The whole thing started as a "wouldn't it be cool if my readers could..." project and turned into something that might actually help other WordPress site owners engage their audiences in a new way.

What do you think? Would you use something like this on your WordPress site? Or am I just overthinking the whole "readers want audio versions of blog posts" thing?

Unveiling Spread Out AI: Automating Social Media Audience Targeting for Your Ads

Sam Kütt — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 07:01:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

I want to share something I've been working on: Spread Out AI. If you are anything like me, you understand the pain of searching through every single social media group for that perfect audience who would engage in your ads, events, or new projects. It's extremely time-consuming and honestly exhausting, so I wanted to make it easier. That's how Spread Out AI was born!

We are launching officially in beta today on Product Hunt and I'd love if you check it out.

Here's what it does: Spread Out AI takes the hassle out of reaching the right communities by using our AI to scour through platforms like Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp to automatically match your ad with the best groups for your audience. No more wasting hours trying to connect with people who are actually interested in what you're talking about. Now, with a couple of clicks, you're in front of people who care.

How it works:

Enter your Ad: Just provide the details about your ad and choose a location, in case you want it.
Find Relevant Communities: Now, using AI, it starts finding and matching your ad to the most relevant groups.
Optimize for Impact: Our text enhancer gives you fine-tuned tweaks to your ad, tailored for each group, to make it convert even better.
Review and Post: Make sure everything is as it should be, then publish it as a post or comment—whichever seems to fit best with the group.

Plans for all types of users

Here's how we're set up to help, whatever stage you're at:

Free Plan: 3 credits, up to 10 results per search in any language. Perfect for giving it a go. • Premium Plan: $20/month, 50 credits, up to 30 results per search, access to all platforms, location targeting to ensure better reach. • Pro Plan: $60/month for 150 credits, enhanced AI with 3x iterations, tailored ad generation, priority support, and new beta features.

What's coming next?

We are actively testing Spread Out AI in beta and are keenly listening to feedback. Here are two powerful features we are working on to make this even better:

Adding more social media sources: To get more results for each selected social media.
AI Training through Selectable Results: Users will be allowed to choose the best result for every search. This way, the AI learns about the kind of results that the users prefer and will yield more accurate results in each subsequent search.
Advanced Ad Text Customization: An additional "Prompt" field will be added in the ad text enhancer for providing more control over how your ad will be worded, helping you refine and evoke the perfect message for your target audience.

Here's How You Can Help: This is a huge step for getting Spread Out AI out there on Product Hunt, and your support would mean the world to me. If this sounds like it's going to save you more time or get better results, I'd highly appreciate it if you could check it out and vote on launch day. That will give us more visibility on Product Hunt and, consequently, more feedback to grow this tool even quicker. And to celebrate the launch we give a 20% off for product hunt voters.

The launch on Product Hunt

The app Spread Out AI

Thank you very much for reading! Feel free to reach out with questions, feedback, or ideas. Let's make the path to the right audience easier together!

DEV Community: Sam Kütt