The Surf app by Flipboard is a feed reader for the fediverse.

Mike McCue, the CEO of Flipboard and an internet entrepreneur since the Netscape era, is a strong advocate for the fediverse, although he prefers to refer to it as “the social web.” Regardless of the name assigned to this interconnected and decentralized social experience promised by applications like Mastodon and Bluesky, McCue is fully convinced that it is the way forward.

Over the past year, McCue and his team have been undertaking a complete transformation of the Flipboard platform to integrate it into the social web. Once the changes are finalized, Flipboard will become a fully decentralized way to discover and read content from across the network. While the process seems to be going well, it is unclear whether Flipboard can dominate the fediverse as Threads might if it fully opened up.

At the same time, the Flipboard team has been developing an even more ambitious application called Surf, which McCue describes as “the first browser for the social web.” This concept was first introduced over a year ago when Surf was still in an early development phase with only mockups. Currently, the application has been in beta for a few months — I have been testing it since then — and today a public beta is being launched. However, access will be initially limited as McCue wants some curators and creators to join first to fill Surf with interesting content before opening it up to the general public.

Regarding the idea of Surf being a “browser for the social web,” McCue explains that, in a decentralized social world, the online experience will rely less on individual websites and more on feeds. With Surf, instead of entering a URL like ‘theverge.com’, users will be able to type in “The Verge” and access the corresponding ActivityPub feed. From the timelines of Threads to Bluesky's onboarding packages, every creator is generating a content feed. The main function of Surf is to facilitate the exploration and discovery of all those feeds, whether they are from ActivityPub, AT Protocol, or RSS.

Surf allows users to search for feeds by topic, publisher, or creator and provides the option to combine multiple feeds to create their own collection. This customization capability, along with the ability for users to share their feeds for others to combine, creates a distinctly social and collaborative experience.

The variety of content on Surf is almost limitless, which presents a design challenge. The application must efficiently function as a social network, a news app, a video platform, and a podcast player simultaneously. While it is not yet a fully mature application in any of these areas, it is useful for various forms of media. Videos are presented in a continuous scrolling format similar to TikTok, while link posts are formatted like news stories, featuring large images and headlines.

Taking the example of an automatic filtering feature within Surf, a personalized feed can be created with podcasts, blogs, YouTube channels, and preferred content creators. This allows the user to access an organized flow of content based on their interests. However, despite its potential, Surf still faces limitations in its social functionality, as the interactive aspect is mostly optimized for Mastodon users.

McCue is convinced that the social web represents the beginning of a new era on the internet. He uses analogies from the past to describe these emerging products, comparing the current situation to the old AOL, characterized as a “walled garden” that housed all innovation. Surf, according to him, resembles Yahoo, as it gathers feeds created by other users. The goal is to enable paid feeds, making it easier for publishers and creators to generate income through the platform.

While there is still much to build and many tools to convince internet platforms and publishers to collaborate, McCue remains optimistic and driven. In a hands-on demonstration, McCue showed a feed filled with basketball content created by David Rushing, a notable member of the NBA community on Threads that is now scattered due to moderation policies. With Surf, users can access all that scattered content and organize it in one place, becoming a counter to the current fragmentation.

In summary, Surf is positioned as a solution to the diversity of intertwined platforms and communities. McCue concludes that, in the end, it is not about the originating platform, but about creating an environment where all communities can coexist and enjoy content regardless of the application used.