• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

After more than a year of testing, news curation and discovery app Flipboard has launched “social websites” through the company’s Surf reader app. The open-source initiative is designed to provide creators and publishers with a new way to connect with users on decentralized platforms.

Now available on the web and the Google Play store, Flipboard’s social websites feature real-time information by bringing together social posts, videos, podcasts, newsletters and community conversations into one space that “creators own and control,” per the company’s announcement. 

Through Flipboard’s Surf.social app, users can build their customizable feeds by adding profiles and creators from open social web platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, as well as YouTube, podcasts, blogs, and articles. 

Users have the option to create and share their custom feeds or simply check out what other users have created for themselves. In creating a feed, users can add favorite sources, assign a community hashtag, set filters, make aesthetic decisions, and assign a custom domain, ultimately making it a website searchable outside the Surf.social platform. 

While followers are not prioritized on social websites, Bluesky and Mastodon users can sign in using their established accounts and comment, like, and share content they find on Surf.

“If all those Twitter-style apps have the spirit of talk radio, this one feels more like a Sunday newspaper,” writes Fast Company’s Harry McCracken, describing social websites as a more laid back magazine-adjacent experience. 

In launching social websites to a wider audience, Flipboard has partnered with independent creators, as well as established publications like The Verge, WIRED, Rolling Stone, 404 Media, and The Oregonian.

These partnered entities have created custom spaces within the Surf reader that users can access to follow journalists, podcasts, videos and user-conversation around trending topics.