Surf Launches Social Websites, a New Model for Social Media

Podcasters, Publishers and Creators Launch Social Websites for Their Communities

Palo Alto, CA-Thursday April 2, 2026-Surf, a browser for the open social web built by the team at Flipboard, is launching social websites, new online destinations that blend social posts, videos, podcasts and conversations to create independent community sites. Social websites unite conversations around everything from popular podcasts to shared interests and hobbies. Each social website is powered by a Surf feed, with sources, filters and moderation controlled by the creator. This new model decentralizes the value of social media, giving power back to the millions of independent creators and communities that, until now, have been stuck in walled gardens.

"Social websites help podcasters, creators and publications build communities around their work and control the experience, including the algorithm," said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard/Surf. "Rather than starting 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 across the social web. I can't wait to see what creators build with Surf and the new tools we're launching today."

Some of the most pioneering publications, indie media and independent creators are live today with bespoke social websites that unite their journalists, community conversations and content into a unique destination. The first 15 inspire a future where people engage in social media on independent websites, owned and operated by the creator. These include: The Verge, Decoder, Vergecast, Version History, WIRED, Rolling Stone Politics, 404 Media, UserMag and Power User, Shutdown Fullcast, The MMQB, Defector: Sports!, All Net, FilmFeed, and The Oregonian.

• The Verge will introduce a new feed to read, watch, or listen to its award-winning reporting on technology and how it makes us feel. It will also launch dedicated social feeds for its podcasts - The Vergecast, Decoder, and Version History - where listeners can discover and interact with the latest episodes, video clips, host commentary, bonus content, and community discussions in one place.

• WIRED, the essential source of reporting and ideas that makes sense of a world in constant transformation, now has a social website for its early adopter audience. WIRED leads the conversation on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives-from business and politics to culture and science. Its social website brings together WIRED's newsroom and brand Bluesky feeds, podcast content, and story distribution into a single destination, allowing audiences to follow WIRED as a whole.

• Rolling Stone magazine is synonymous with culture, but its deep dives in politics have exposed another side of their influence and depth of coverage. Their Rolling Stone Politics social website features the editorial staff and their stories so fans can follow this angle of their legendary journalism with a specific social website they can join and share.

• One of the most iconic examples of indie journalism, 404 Media delivers the deep dives and investigative stories we all should be talking about. Surf unites their coverage, their journalists and their community conversations into a 404 Media social website that serves both their existing readers and can be shared to engage new audiences across the web.

• Creator and author, Taylor Lorenz unites her social voice with her content into a single social website called Power User. It's a destination for her community to catch up on everything she's posting, watch her latest videos, listen to the podcast and join the conversation with #PowerUserPod. She's also launching UserMag for more from her popular newsletter and the issues she's covering.

• The crew of Shutdown Fullcast brings coverage of college football to a new level and embraces the wild and wacky conversations that offseason football demands. To keep the stands filled year-round they take to social media and their new Shutdown Fullcast Gameday brings fans together to create a stadium of their own.

• The MMQB podcast, home to Sports Illustrated's in depth national football coverage, shares unique, informed and immediate analysis from around the NFL. Whether you're looking to catch up on Sunday's football action, take a deep dive into the film or answer some burning NFL questions, The MMQB staff has you covered.

• Defector's wide ranging coverage spans sports, culture, science, politics and more. But Defector knows that not every reader cares about every one of those topics. Surf feeds make it easy to build a destination for Defector readers to follow the mix of stories and social commentary they are interested in, starting with Defector: Sports!.

• Known as the mayor of #NBAThreads, David Rushing is a fan-first creator who cares about community building and basketball. His community shares content across lots of platforms, so he created All Net, a social website for NBA fans that uses hashtags to bring together conversations from basketball personalities, videos people are sharing and league chatter, giving his community a space to enjoy the game together.

• David Imel, researcher, writer and co-host of Waveform, is also a passionate film photographer. He created FilmFeed as a way to recreate the magic of old-school Instagram for film photographers. He's curated favorite YouTube channels, podcasts and added a custom hashtag, allowing anyone in his community to contribute their photos, techniques and inspiration using #FilmFeed.

• The Pulitzer Prize-winning Oregonian and Oregon Live are collectively the number-one news source in the Pacific Northwest. Their social site includes Bluesky accounts for their journalists, podcasts, YouTube channel and Flipboard Magazines. It's filtered for news to give up-to-date, trustworthy information for anyone who lives in Oregon or is interested in what happens there.

There are over 10,000 Surf feeds that have been built by beta users around a huge variety of topics. The ones published as social websites today, along with a selection of editorially featured feeds, can be found in the Discover Feeds tab at surf.social/discover.

Making a Social Website

Using surf.social, anyone can make a Surf feed, publish it with a subdomain and launch it as their own social website. Feeds can include sources from Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, YouTube, podcast services, blogs and newsletters (RSS). Users can also assign a community hashtag, allowing people to contribute to the feed simply by using the hashtag. They can also set filters and exclude profiles or terms to keep the conversation on topic. More tools to customize (e.g., adding custom headers and colors) and manage feeds are coming soon. Most importantly, social websites can now be shared outside of Surf, with online communities or linked in websites.

A mobile experience of Surf is in beta. It's available for Android users in the Google Play store and iOS users by invite at waitlist.surf.social. Follow all of Surf's updates and community conversations on Bluesky, Mastodon or Threads.

About Flipboard, Inc.

Flipboard, Inc. is the company building Surf. Flipboard is best known for its award-winning social magazine app, Flipboard, where people go to flip through the news and information they want to keep up with. Surf is the first browser for the open social web, helping people discover and organize what people are sharing online. Surf is currently in beta and available at surf.social. Download Flipboard for free in any app store or visit flipboard.com. Follow Flipboard on Threads, Mastodon and/or Bluesky.