Follow podcasts directly with QRX

After DirectFlow was mentioned in Podnews, I decided to explain in a bit more detail how podcast subscriptions can work now. Besides scanning a QR code or typing a website address manually, DirectFlow can already follow podcasts in several different ways.

In DirectFlow, you can already follow a podcast by:

scanning a QR code of the podcast website
pasting the website link
pasting a link to almost any page of the podcast website
typing the domain manually and pressing Enter
or using this url:

https://directflow.app/follow?url=https:// podcast website/page adresss

Soon, DirectFlow will also support following podcasts directly from links shared by podcast players and podcast apps. The important part is this: everything here revolves around the domain. Once DirectFlow receives a website link, it tries to discover the podcast flow directly from the website itself. So the website becomes:

the identity;
the connection point;
the thing you follow directly.

And this type of interaction with domains is what I call Quick response experience — QRX. It's a different way of thinking about what websites and links can do.

For podcast developers, podcast hosting platforms, and website owners: if you want DirectFlow to reliably discover your podcast, expose the RSS feed in the HTML <head> on every page of the website.

Example:

<link
  rel="alternate"
  type="application/rss+xml"
  title="Podcast RSS Feed"
  href="https://example.com/feed.xml"
/>

This allows software to discover podcast feeds directly from websites, even when someone shares a random episode page, article, or other URL from the site. Feed autodiscovery reference: https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery

As a podcast, your RSS feed should also contain proper enclosures:

<enclosure
  url="https://example.com/episode1.mp3"
  length="12345678"
  type="audio/mpeg" />

RSS feed enclosure reference: https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification#ltenclosuregtSubelementOfLtitemgt

Maybe podcasts were always meant to be followed this way - directly from websites themselves. The web already had most of the pieces. QRX is mostly about reconnecting them into a simpler interaction model.

Published on May 26, 2026

directflow qrx