The **Surf** app from Flipboard (currently in Beta) is actually pretty cool / powerful for certain types of feeds. I would describe Surf as, an app for the Social Web that let’s you build _and share_ custom feeds. So what does this mean in practice? The Surf about page is a little light on detail, _but has gobs of style_. When I first downloaded the app and got into the Beta, I admit I wasn’t sure what the app would do for me that my already-well-curated Fediverse timelines wasn’t doing. But then, I built my first custom feed. From there, I started to see the potential…
# Surfing Shellsharks
To test out Surf, I first tried creating a simple feed pulling all of my Shellsharks-related things from across the “Social Web” together. I was able to add Sources for my RSS feeds, my Podcast, my Bluesky profile, my Threads profile, my various Fediverse accounts and even posts that were “about” or matched the term “shellsharks”. _Interesting!_ It’s easy enough to create a “list” in a given Fediverse client that can capture _most_ of these things (e.g. my Fedi accounts, Bsky, Threads, RSS feeds, etc…) but not _all_ of them. Pulling in posts that match certain search criteria is an added layer of discovery for me. It also treats Bluesky and Threads and other non-Fedi-native content as first-party content within the Surf app itself, bundled in a pleasing, swipable, card-style view, allowing me to flick through posts that match my source material.
_OK_ , well that looks cool, and I’ll definitely go to it to check in on myself, but what _else_ can I [do with Surf](#benefits-of-a-social-web-browser-and-feed-builder?
## Benefits of a Social Web Browser and Feed Builder
So what can Surf do beyond building eye-pleasing lists of Fediverse accounts and hashtags? Let’s talk about it.
The first obvious answer is **sharing**. There’s no _easy_ way to create and then share lists of Fediverse accounts. We saw this when Bluesky unveiled their “Starter Packs” and the Fediverse tried to mimic it, and it’s true to this day. The Fediverse’s non-algorithmic way of life means we rely mainly on self-curating and network-related-boosting. Without robust list sharing features, we’ve never really had an _easy_ way to share our curated lists, but Surf tries to make this easier. I have several custom feeds now that you can add (if and when you get the Surf app). Since you log in to Surf _with_ your Fedi account, you can also interact with and follow things directly from the app!
Another thing I like about the Surf model is the ability to follow feeds or accounts in a more, **casual** manner. Everything I follow in my regular Fediverse timeline is something I want to see. I want to read what my follows post and potentially interact with those things. I am a timeline completionist in this way. But there are times I want to casually scroll, to be entertained, or informed or to discover new things I want to _follow_. Custom feeds via Surf give me the ability to peruse things in a non-commital way. For example, to do something similar in Mastodon, I would need to A. follow an account/hashtag, B. add that account/tag to a list, and then optionally C. decide whether I want to remove what’s in that list from my timeline. This forces me to follow things I might be interested in looking at from time to time, but not actually _following_ , and it forces me to make a decision on how to bisect my main timeline, which is not something I want to do. In short, I don’t like Mastodon lists, but I like what I can do with Surf.
Let’s talk about **content diversity**. Within the Fediverse, I can curate a list or feed of a lot of things. Micro-blogs, pictures, videos, podcasts, forum posts, and more. The beauty of the Fediverse is in it’s diversity. But the Fediverse, as large as it is, is still only a subset of an even wider “Social Web”. What Surf let’s me do, that you can’t _exactly_ do within a traditional Fediverse client, is build a feed that has even _more_ types of things - generic keyword searches, YouTube videos, podcasts, native (not-bridged) Bluesky profiles, and I suspect more in the future.
The final benefit (at least that I’ve discovered thus far), is the opportunity for **improved search**. At the bottom of the Surf app is a text box that says “Surf the social web”, and it seems to bring back a lot of good results! Far better than what I can get on my single-user instance, and I suspect better than most people can get even on larger, mid-sized instances. I don’t know a lot about how this search works under the hood, but it’s already an improvement over what I have.
This is just a beta, so there’s lots of room to iron kinks out and add even more types of content, and ways to further tailor feeds. I’m looking forward to
# My Custom Surf Feeds
If you’re in the beta, feel free to check all of my custom feeds out! **Note** : They are all a work in progress.
* Shellsharks feed: Just a feed which aggregates my various blog RSS feeds, Fedi accounts, podcast and Bluesky
* Fedi Artists feed: All my favorite artists from the Fediverse (inspired by this. )
* IndieSec feed: A curated list of high signal-to-noise infosec/cybersecurity researchers and accounts
* Fedbuilds and Builders feed: A list of accounts for Fediverse platforms and the builders behind them
* Reality: a news feed: Independent / trust-worthy news. An attempt to capture “reality”, not spin
If you’re interested in Surf, go check it out!
I’m going to go play around with it more and make some more feeds! Shoutout to @mike!
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# Appendices
## Feature Requests
As I’m beta-testing the app, I’m documenting some features I’d like to see in-app here…
* I’d like a way to just punch in an RSS endpoint and have that load via the search box
* As someone who has multiple Fedi presences, I’d like to be able to go multi-account within the Surf app
* Maybe notifications for what/when things are added/changed in a feed you are subscribed to
* More ways to programatically customize things in custom feeds
## Bugs
Also, as I’m beta testing the app, I’m going to document some bugs I’ve encountered here…
* Some general slowness loading the app, loading in to a custom feed, etc…
* I can’t set the “Tile Image” to “Always use uploaded photo” in Feed/Cover Settings
