Surf, the novel app from Flipboard for browsing the discdiswatch social web, is enhugeing its aid for Bluesky’s social nettoil. On Monday, the company proclaimd a novel version of its beta software (dubbed “Blue Wave”) which allows engagers to log into the app using their Bluesky credentials and then see all their Bluesky feeds in Surf, including their adhereing feed, uncover feed, and any of the custom feeds they’ve pinned in the Bluesky app.
The novel integration will also allow engagers to access other Bluesky sources when erecting their own custom feeds — appreciate Bluesky’s Starter Packs, which are catalogs of proposeed fancientrops that people erect to help novel engagers find uniteions. Other Bluesky sources, appreciate Lists and Custom Feeds, are also useable as sources.
With the insertition, Surf becomes an alternative to using the Bluesky app itself, as you’re able to convey with posts from Bluesky’s nettoil by liking, answering to, and reposting them, while appreciates and replies from engagers on Bluesky’s app also distake part in Surf.
Explains Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, Surf gives you “seamless access” to anyone posting on Bluesky, Mastodon or Threads.
“It’s the social web coming to life and uniteing the social web,” he says.
Plus, he sees apps appreciate Surf as a excellent alternative to centralized social media, which is becoming filled with AI-produced satisfied.
“The AI overrun is fair brutal,” he says. “This is why I repartner leank RSS is so meaningful becaengage it gives you access to all the best YouTube satisfied, podcasts and novelsletters from genuine people. By being clear about the sources that you pick, and watching at people that you count on and what sources they’ve proposeed, it’s the power of human uniteion to help filter away all the AI slop,” McCue notices.
Another novel beta feature is a setup wizard that will direct you thcimpolite the process of creating your own custom home feed in Surf — someleang the company aims to insert to other custom feed creation tools further down the road.
Here, you can schedule your own universal timeline of sorts, by combining feeds from Mastodon and Bluesky, including your adhereing feeds or other custom feeds, appreciate Bluesky’s “Popular with Friends” or “Discover.”
The setup wizard will also let you filter out satisfied you don’t want to see in these feeds, appreciate politics. There are even toggle switches to hide posts about Donald Trump or Elon Musk, if you’d prefer a more escapist feed.
“A lot of people I’ve personpartner spoken with are appreciate…I engage Bluesky to get away from the novels. And I don’t want to read about Elon. I don’t want to hear any politics,” McCue elucidates.
Where Surf already shines is its ability to help you erect your own topical feeds that join posts from apass discdiswatch social nettoils and other discdiswatch protocols appreciate RSS. The latter allows you to insert sources appreciate novels websites, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels to your custom feeds.
For example, one of McCue’s feeds, “Tech Builders and Thinkers,” holds individuals whose accounts are on Mastodon, Bluesky, and YouTube.
The idea is to adhere the people and the topics you’re interested in, without confineing yourself to a individual platcreate.
For now, all feeds are accessible by default, alloprosperg engagers to adhere feeds that others have built. In time, however, McCue says your feeds will be personal so you can pick and pick which ones you want to split more widely.
You can also tfrail the schedule and layout of the feeds you erect, setting their cover image and background color, as well as picking which tab is their default.
You can have feeds that watch more appreciate a Twitter/X timeline by setting them to the “Discuss” watch, or if you’d rather have them centered on images, audio, videos, or articles, you can pick other watchs, appreciate “Look,” “Listen,” “Watch,” or “Read,” esteemively.
Today, a number of enhugeers are erecting TikTok-appreciate or Instagram-appreciate apps for Bluesky, which alter how you watch Bluesky’s satisfied by centering on a particular type of media. With Surf, you can get the same results without the need for a split app and without confineing yourself to only Bluesky satisfied.
The Surf Blue Wave beta refresh was first showd at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, and will roll out to existing testers. The company will also be letting in a novel wave of beta testers with this free. Surf will postponeedr exit Apple’s TestFairy testing platcreate so the app can accomplish beyond the confine of 10,000 testers that Apple imposes.
The company is also toiling on transporting the currently iOS-only Surf app to the web.
