Flipboard Surf: New Video App & Feed - Details

Surf App Launches Video Feed Following TikTok Ban

In the wake of the TikTok ban taking effect on Sunday, the social network Bluesky introduced a dedicated video feed. Now, Flipboard’s new application, Surf, designed for navigating the open social web and decentralized platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky, is capitalizing on this development by introducing a video feed of its own.

Initial Feed Composition

Initially, Surf’s video feed aggregated videos from Bluesky’s “trending video” section and posts utilizing the hashtag #SkyTok. The company anticipates implementing personalized feed curation for each user in the near future.

Differentiation and Third-Party Feed Power

This personalization will serve to distinguish Surf’s video feed from the native offering on Bluesky. It also demonstrates the potential benefits of enabling third-party applications to construct feeds for social networking platforms. Currently, Surf is accessible in beta, with a sign-up list available for prospective testers.

Flipboard CEO on Custom Feeds

“This development exemplifies the versatility of custom feeds on the social web, offering applications for various purposes—video sharing, photo sharing, discussion forums, messaging, and more—areas traditionally dominated by large, closed ecosystems,” stated Flipboard CEO Mike McCue in an email to TechCrunch. “We are still in the early stages, but progress is occurring rapidly, particularly within the AT Proto protocol [which underpins Bluesky].”

Personalization Through Bluesky Following

To enhance the Surf video feed’s personalization, McCue explained that the company will soon integrate users’ Bluesky Following timeline as a source. This timeline, itself a custom feed, will be filtered to display only video content. Upon completion, the feed will showcase videos from accounts users actively follow.

Adoption of TikTok-Style Interface

Following Bluesky’s release of its native custom video feed, featuring a new TikTok-inspired user interface, Surf adopted a similar design for its own feed. (Note: Users who do not see the TikTok-style interface on Bluesky may benefit from restarting their mobile application several times.)

Accessing the Feed on Bluesky

For those unable to access Surf, which remains in private beta, the feed is directly available on Bluesky. Surf has federated its new custom video feed to Bluesky, presenting it as an additional native, custom feed option.

Versatility of Surf for Feed Creation

McCue highlighted Surf’s capability to generate diverse video feeds.

Creation of a “BookTok” Feed

As an example, he developed a “BookTok” feed, concentrating on video discussions about books, mirroring TikTok’s popular BookTok community. This feed is accessible on both Surf and Bluesky.

Hashtag-Based Feed Construction

To construct this feed, McCue incorporated videos tagged with both #BookTok and #BookSky.

Cross-Platform Video Aggregation

However, given that these tags may appear on platforms beyond Bluesky, utilizing the feed within Surf itself will reveal videos from services like YouTube, Threads, and Mastodon, alongside those from Bluesky. This is achievable because Surf enables users to explore multiple social networks, including those powered by protocols like ActivityPub (utilized by Mastodon), the AT Protocol (utilized by Bluesky), and RSS.