Flipboard Launches Surf, Pulling Together Your Social Interests and News Feeds
If you’re overwhelmed by trying to keep up with multiple apps and social media interests, you now have a new way to bring your connections together. Flipboard, a popular social magazine app, launched Surf on Thursday.
Surfing reminds me of the days when we used RSS feeds to follow our interests. In short, it’s a fast and simplified way to browse and explore the web on mobile or desktop.
Your Surf site brings together posts, videos, podcasts, and social media conversations in a feed-like style. So if you’re interested in politics, the Rolling Stone Politics Surf site might offer you relevant articles from Blue skyreposts from Wired and original posts created on Surf.
How does it work?
Visit Surf.social and create an account. You can analyze other communities’ feeds, create your own, and connect with people with similar interests. Surf allows you to integrate sources from several social media platforms, including Bluesky, TopicsYouTube and Mastodon. You can also include sources from podcast services, blogs, and newsletters.
Surf also has a search engine in beta mode. When I searched for Pilates, for example, a feed was curated to include related posts and articles. It also highlighted people who contributed to the feed so I could see more of their content, if I wanted. Trending topics, like Survivor 50 and Nintendoare also available.
Surf lets you search for dedicated feeds based on your interests, like cooking or technology.
Uniting communities
“Social websites help podcasters, creators and publications build communities around their work and control the experience, including the algorithm,” Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard and Surf, said in a statement. McCue says creators can use social media websites to unite people and conversations already happening.
“Rather than building a community from scratch, creators can use social websites to easily bring together the people and conversations that are already happening around their podcasts, videos and newsletters on the social web,” he said.
There is a distinct difference between Surf and other popular social media platforms. Surf says each website is powered by a feed and controlled by the creator. This cuts out the noise of other topics you may not be interested in, which can be a relief in an age where Facebook has made a habit of filling your feed with groups and posts you never asked for.
The Surf app is available in beta on Google Play and will be on the Apple App Store by the end of April. Surf won’t come out of beta mode for six to nine months, a Surf representative said in an email to CNET. Users can also access Surf via the web.
You won’t need social media apps to create a Surf profile, but you will see that many reposts come from other social media profiles. I wouldn’t say it’s a replacement for Instagram or Facebook, but it could be a good addition if you want a dedicated space to dive in or connect with others on certain topics.
Flipboard also says more updates are coming, including custom headers, colors, and feed management. A Surf representative says to expect more features by summer, including professional tools for points of sale wishing to offer privileges to members.
