Free vs Pro in Fusebox 1.0
The Fusebox Pro subscription comes with three different types of players as well as a transcript plugin. In this Getting Started #3 support doc, we'll walk you through the basic differences between the players, and what the transcript plugin does. For a full, more detailed walkthrough of each of the tools, check out Getting Started #7: Adding the Fusebox Full Player, Getting Started #8: Adding the Fusebox Track Player, Sticky Player, and Fusebox Transcript Plugin.
Note: For Fusebox Free subscribers, you only have access to the transcript plugin and a limited version of the sticky player (not the full player or track player).
Fusebox Tools
The Fusebox Pro subscription comes with three different podcast players and one transcript tool:
- Fusebox Full Player (Pro only)
- Fusebox Track Player (Pro only)
- Fusebox Sticky Player
- Fusebox Transcript Plugin
Which player you should choose will depend on what you want your listeners to do.
Fusebox Full Player (Pro Only)
The Fusebox Full Player is pictured below. We call it the "full" player because it allows you to showcase and play your full podcast episode library. If you’re on a page where you want your listeners to explore all your podcast episodes, use the library player.
You'll also notice a button ("Join Our Email List") just under the title of the episode in the full player. That's our Email Capture feature, where you can inspire your listeners to sign up for your email list directly from the player! Learn more about Email Capture. The email capture feature can be used on all three players; it's a Pro feature.
Adding the full player to your website gives your listeners an option to listen directly from your website, and listen to more than one episode from the same player! The full is great for your website’s home page or for your main podcast page (not episode pages necessarily).
Each of the elements you see here are customizable, including the highlight color (what's shown on the play/pause button and progress bar), light or dark theme, podcast image, etc. All can be adjusted in your Player Defaults and customized further in the shortcode builder.
The full player reads your RSS feed. You'll want to add your podcast RSS feed to the Podcast RSS Feed URL section of the Player Defaults tab (Settings > Fusebox Player > Player Defaults).
For a full walkthrough on how to set up your Fusebox Full Player, check out Getting Started #7: Adding the Fusebox Full Player.
Fusebox Track Player (Pro Only)
The Fusebox Track Player is pictured below. We refer to it as the "track" player because it is used for playing a single podcast episode or audio track at a time. This player is excellent for a podcast episode's show notes page, such as shown here for Fusebox subscriber Alice Agnello's podcast, Kids Are Grown, NOW WHAT? podcast.
Mobile version of the track player
The track player reads your RSS feed to highlight the latest episode from your feed, or a specific episode from your episode catalog by reading an episode URL ending in .mp3.
If you're unsure of what your RSS feed, check out Getting Started #5: Finding Your RSS Feed. When you're highlighting a specific episode, your URL needs to end in .mp3. Learn more about that here.
Sticky Player (Pro and Free)
The Fusebox Sticky Player is similar to the track player, in that it plays a single episode of your podcast at a time; it is different in that the sticky player is designed specifically to "stick" to the bottom or top of your website. As your website visitor scrolls up and down the page, the Sticky player remains stuck to the top or bottom of that webpage, whereas the track player remains in one location on the webpage.
The sticky player reads your RSS feed to highlight the latest episode from your feed, or a specific episode from your episode catalog by reading an episode URL ending in .mp3.
If you are Pro subscriber, learn more about the sticky player here.
If you are a Free subscriber, learn more about the sticky player here.
Here's an example from Fusebox subscriber Josiah Goff's podcast, Content Heroes. You can see that Josiah is using the sticky player at the bottom of his website:
If you're ready to add the Fusebox sticky player to your website, here's a walkthrough on how to set it up.
Fusebox Transcript (Pro and Free)
In addition to the three different podcast players, we also offer the Fusebox Transcript plugin (both Fusebox Pro and Fusebox Free subscriptions get access to our transcript plugin). Fusebox Transcript is not a transcription service (like Temi or Rev), but a way to showcase your transcribed episodes to allow for better accessibility and SEO for your podcast episodes.
Here's a screenshot of the Fusebox Transcript plugin:
And check out the Transcript Plugin in action here!
If you're a Pro subscriber, check out the support doc here. If you're a Free subscriber, check out the support doc here.
Now that you understand the differences between the Fusebox players and got a peek at Fusebox Transcript, let's move onto Getting Started #4!