Why we added RSS and podcasts to Intentr

The problem with scattered feeds

Before Plus, Intentr was built around channels you followed directly within the app. That worked beautifully for text creators and video, but podcasters and newsletter authors lived somewhere else entirely. Your podcast app knew about your shows. Your RSS reader knew about your blogs. But Intentr didn't. And that meant you had to choose: use Intentr for some of your media consumption, or don't. Half measures defeat the whole purpose of intentionality.

The frustration was real. We'd built this system where you decide what to pay attention to, where you set a clear intention before you start, where your attention ledger shows you exactly what you spent time on. But if your primary sources of content weren't integrated, you'd end up jumping between apps, breaking your own intention in the process. That's not intentional. That's just fragmented.

Connected sources: bringing your media together

With Plus, we made it possible to connect RSS feeds and podcasts directly as channels. This sounds simple on paper. In practice, it meant rethinking how Intentr handles external feeds, how we parse and display content that doesn't live on our servers, and how creators from those feeds still benefit from the 85% revenue share that's core to how we work.

When you connect a podcast feed or an RSS blog, it appears in Intentr exactly as any other channel would. You follow it. When you set a session intention and start listening or reading, your time on that content goes into your attention ledger. You see it. You know where your attention went. The creator still gets paid fairly, because subscriptions to your Plus account support their work.

We also added YouTube. If you follow creators on YouTube and want to watch their content within an intentional session, you can now do that too. No algorithm suggesting what comes next. Just you, your intention, and the creator you chose to follow.

What changed for you

If you're on Free, nothing. The three sessions per day, five channels, and seven-day ledger history stay the same. We wanted to make sure the baseline experience was always about intention, not about opening your wallet.

If you move to Plus, those limits lift. Unlimited sessions. Unlimited channels. And, crucially, the ability to connect external sources. Import your podcasts. Bring in your favourite RSS feeds. Add the YouTube creators you actually want to hear from. Intentr stops being a silo and starts being the centre of your intentional media diet.

We made sure that connecting these sources was frictionless. Find the feed or podcast you want to follow, paste the URL or search for it, and it appears in your channel list. No complexity. No gatekeeping.

The ledger question

Here's something we learned while building this: tracking time across sources matters more when those sources are decentralised. When everything was within Intentr, the ledger was about reflection. When your podcasts and newsletters and YouTube channels are connected, the ledger becomes almost revelatory. You see that you spent two hours on podcasts, thirty minutes on one newsletter, an hour on a specific YouTube creator. You understand your patterns.

For Plus subscribers, we kept full ledger history. That's unlimited lookback on what you've paid attention to. For Free users, you get seven days. Either way, it's yours. Not sold to anyone. Not used to predict what you'll want next.

Why this matters to creators

When we talked to creators about adding RSS and podcasts, we heard the same concern repeatedly: platforms centralise audiences and then change the rules. We wanted to build something different. When a podcaster or newsletter author connects their feed to Intentr, they're not moving to a new platform. They're not giving up their existing audience. They're simply reaching people who want to consume their work intentionally, and they're paid fairly for it. Eighty-five percent of subscription revenue goes to creators. That's not a marketing line for us. That's the entire point.

Where you start

If you're on Plus, look for the plus button in your channels view. You'll see 'Add channel' as an option. From there, you can search for a podcast, paste an RSS feed URL, or search for a YouTube creator. It's there. It's ready to use.

And if you're still on Free? This is one of the things we built Plus to unlock. Not because we needed the revenue, though we do. Because unlimited intentionality requires the tools to match it.