Flipboard Unveils Surf: A Fresh Social App and Feed Reader Experience

Surf is a bit tricky to define, as it serves multiple purposes: it acts as a client for fediverse platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon, functions as a feed reader for subscribing to various websites, podcasts, or YouTube channels, and allows users to create and follow curated feeds of engaging content, similar to Flipboard magazines. Think of it as a browser for the fediverse or the open social web, if those terms resonate with you. It represents a fascinating vision for the future of online interaction.

After spending over a year in beta, Surf is set to officially launch on Thursday. Currently, the web version is the only public experience available (with mobile apps in beta), featuring what Surf refers to as “social websites.” An outlet has partnered with Surf for this launch, contributing to the development of several of these websites. For instance, if you visit the Decoder page on Surf, you’ll find all the latest episodes of the show along with a stream of social discussions surrounding it. Anyone can contribute to the community by using a hashtag, emphasizing Surf’s commitment to hashtags as a means of organizing online content. Moderators of the feed can manage visibility and interactions.

To get started with Surf, you can sign up using either a Mastodon or Bluesky account, or both, and then create a Surf account to manage everything in one place. Once you’re in, you can search for and curate content — the platform claims its search encompasses billions of posts across ActivityPub (the protocol behind Mastodon), AT Protocol (the one for Bluesky), and the wider web. The goal is to simplify your experience, allowing you to follow feeds curated by others or create and share your own without worrying about the underlying protocols.

Here’s where things get a bit complex. When you hit the heart button to like a post on Surf, you’re actually liking that content through your social account. Commenting means you’re replying to that post with your own. Adding to a Surf feed might even create a post on Mastodon. This interconnectedness of the fediverse is both thrilling and a bit perplexing. The idea of managing a single account for posting across various platforms, rather than juggling multiple accounts on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and others, is appealing, but the mechanics are still being figured out.

You can think of federated social networks as vast, organized databases of user-generated content — all the links, selfies, jokes, videos, and more are stored in this database. While most social apps present this data as a traditional Twitter-style timeline, Surf takes a different approach: it showcases video-first feeds with large previews and in-line players, transforms podcast files into a podcast player format, and displays links in a magazine-style layout reminiscent of Flipboard. One of the standout features of Surf is the ability to sort feeds by content type; for example, searching for “SNL clips” and selecting the video tab yields an endless stream of curated content from users on Bluesky and Mastodon.

Having been a beta tester for Surf since its early days, I find it both intriguing and occasionally confusing, much like the fediverse itself. However, there’s a powerful aspect to how this platform operates. Using it feels akin to scrolling through TikTok, but instead of relying on an algorithm, my feed is curated by knowledgeable individuals across the internet. While the team behind Flipboard is working to establish a platform and business model for Surf, the system remains open by design; even if Surf were to disappear, the content would persist. In an era where platforms often feel unstable and unpredictable, Surf represents a promising shift in a new direction.