Clarification about DirectFlow and QRX
If I had heard about QRX for the first time on Podnews Weekly Review, I would probably have wondered why a simple RSS autodiscovery feature was being called "flow" or "DirectFlow".
'DirectFlow' is the name of the first application built on top of QRX (Quick Response Experience). The name 'QRX' came from QR codes. It was when I added QR code support to the DirectFlow app that I realized the idea was much bigger than following websites and podcasts directly. The goal of QRX is simple: let applications discover what experiences are available from a URL.
Podcasters usually don't need to do anything. Paste the website address of almost any podcast into the DirectFlow app and that's it. If the website contains a special magic link, you will successfully subscribe to the podcast. This also works with links to any page on the podcast's website. To discover a special magic link automatically, DirectFlow, through QRX, uses a technology that has existed for more than 25 years.
Soon, users will be able to subscribe not only from website URLs, but also by pasting or sharing links from podcast apps such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and others.
Podcast applications don't even need to add QR code scanning to benefit from QRX. Simply allow users to paste a website URL into the search box and automatically discover RSS feeds from the page's <head> section, exactly as the DirectFlow app does today. Or simply allow users to share a website URL directly into the application.
About flows. As I continued working on QRX, RSS became just one possible result among many. Since <head> contains other machine-readable signals as well, I started using the word "flow" instead of "feed". In the DirectFlow app, a feed is one type of flow.
So QRX is the method. The DirectFlow app is the first application built on top of it. I believe the DirectFlow app solved a podcast subscription problem, both technically and practically. But it is not limited to podcasts.
I'm curious to see what the podcast industry does with this idea. From my side, I'm open to any conversations, feedback, partnerships, or experiments around it.
Published on May 29, 2026