August 13, 2024–Palo Alto, CA–Starting today, Flipboard users can follow federated Threads accounts, such as President Joe Biden (@POTUS) and Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD), or Mastodon profiles, including George Takei and Taylor Lorenz, and see all of their posts on Flipboard. The ability to follow and engage with people on other social networks is the next step in Flipboard’s work to integrate the ActivityPub protocol, open its platform, and connect its users with communities across the fediverse.
“Now literally millions of new people can be followed on Flipboard. It’s an exciting expansion of the types of content and conversations people can add to their Flipboard experience,” said Mike McCue, Flipboard’s CEO and co-founder. “And our users become an entirely new audience for creators and communities to connect with as well. This interoperability is the future of social media and we’re excited to see how it reshapes our world.”
With Threads, Mastodon, Ghost, WordPress, Pixelfed, PeerTube and hundreds of other networks building interoperable services in the fediverse, the entire ActivityPub social graph grows and gets more diverse. By opening its platform, Flipboard is now a part of this new social graph, expanding its content and community. Any Flipboard user can now follow profiles from any other service and, if their Flipboard account is federated, they can also interact, post and participate in conversations happening across the entire ecosystem.
To find and follow people in the fediverse, Flipboard is programming three areas of the app — Search, Explore and Community — making it easy to discover interesting and informative profiles sharing across the fediverse. Flipboard Search has been redesigned to surface fediverse accounts and include profile results in a new section titled “Fediverse Accounts.” Editorially curated recommendations will now be in Flipboard’s Explore tab under “Fediverse” and new accounts will be featured each week in the Home carousel’s Community section. Accounts will be added to search and editorial sections as important figures join the fediverse. In addition, for federated Flipboard users, activity from the fediverse will display in their Flipboard notifications panel. Users will be able to engage with and follow people right from a notification.
As examples, below are 20 fediverse profiles Flipboard users can now add to their Flipboard app. To see everyone featured this week, go to the Explore tab on Flipboard. When Flipboard users follow fediverse profiles, that account’s posts and activity will be displayed in a new Fediverse Activity section in the Flipboard For You feed.
About Flipboard: Flipboard is the world’s first social magazine where people go for information and inspiration. It’s a platform that lets people spend time on their interests, develop deeper understanding of issues, and share the best ideas with others by collecting them into their own Flipboard Magazines. Download Flipboard for free in any app store or visit flipboard.com. Follow Flipboard on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky.