Over the next week, nearly 100 press.coop accounts will be replaced with official publisher Flipboard accounts, giving publishers ownership over the content shared into the fediverse as well as the ability to engage with their followers. 

In 2023, with the rise of Mastodon and fediverse communities, people who had joined these emerging social networks were looking for the news they were accustomed to seeing on other social media services. But the news organizations were not there yet. 

“One of the reasons I was still going to Twitter was to see news that I cared about,” said Dick Hardt, Founder and CEO of Hellō. In search of a fediverse solution for news and information, he launched press.coop and created accounts for sources he was interested in seeing as well as others that the community was requesting. These accounts mirrored what publishers were sharing on Twitter or in RSS feeds and could be followed by anyone on open social networks, like Mastodon. It was an excellent fix for a common problem.

Over the past year, press.coop has become very popular and some accounts now have thousands of followers. But the team at press.coop noticed that Flipboard publishers started joining the fediverse and decided that these publisher-owned accounts may be a more direct way for people to connect with the publisher and its content. 

There is nothing required on your side. If you follow a press.coop account, you’ll now be automatically following the publisher’s Flipboard.com account. The Flipboard account shares an analogous RSS feed and should behave almost exactly as the press.coop content feed. The biggest difference is that the posts will be persistent on the profile (where press.coop previously would delete content after seven days) and the publisher will be able to see and reply to people who comment, like or boost its posts. On Flipboard, the publisher owns the account and can edit the profile and engage with its followers anytime, right from the Flipboard app.

Going forward, for publishers that are part of this migration, the stories, videos and commentary posted to Flipboard will be shared to people who follow the Flipboard.com account as well as anyone previously following the press.coop account. For many publishers, combining press.coop and Flipboard.com fediverse followers represents a significant increase in their fediverse audience — which is exciting as they establish new connections outside of the walled gardens of today’s social media experiences. 

We are grateful for the pioneering work by press.coop, increasing the availability of quality content in the fediverse. We hope people continue to find the news and information they care about through the wide array of Flipboard publisher accounts and Magazines now federated. 

PS: If you’d like to learn more about how Flipboard is opening its platform to communities in the fediverse, here’s a link to our blog.

Thanks for keeping up with all the Flipboard and fediverse news through our blog. You can download the Flipboard app in the App Store and Google Play Store for free. Personalize it for the stories you’re interested in, and curate your favorite articles, videos and podcasts into your own Flipboard Magazines.