Flipboard deepens its ties to the open-source social web (aka fediverse)

Flipboard, a Web 2.0-era social magazine app that’s reinventing itself to capitalize on the renewed push towards an open social webis deepening its ties with fediverse, the social network of interconnected servers that includes applications such as Mastodon, Pixel powered, PeerTube and, over time, Instagram Topics, between others. On Thursday, the company announced that it is expanding its Fediverse integrations to 400 more Flipboard creators and introducing Fediverse notifications into the Flipboard app itself.

The latter will allow Flipboard users to see their new followers and other activity related to the content they share on fediverse directly in the Flipboard app. This follows the introduction last year of a Mastodon integration into the appreplacing Twitter, and the introduction of ActivityPub supportthe social networking protocol that powers the open-source, decentralized social networks that include Mastodon and others.

In February, Flipboard announced that it would begin adding its creators and their social magazines to fediverse as well, meaning that the link-curated magazines and other social posts that its creators typically share on the Flipboard app could now find a wider audience. By sharing creators’ posts and links with the broader fediverse, Flipboard’s publishing partners gained their own native ActivityPub feeds so they could be discovered by Mastodon users and those on other federated social apps. This initial push toward federation started with 1,000 Flipboard magazines and today adds 400 more. In total, Flipboard says there are now more than 11,000 curated Flipboard magazines available to federated social media users.

“This is an important step toward fully federating our platform,” noted Flipboard CEO Mike McCue in an announcement. “Not only are we making curated content visible on Flipboard, but we’re also enabling two-way communication so users can see activity and interact with diverse communities. Personally, this has made my curation even more interesting, as I know it’s reaching new people who can share my interests.”

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The expanded set of accounts includes public accounts with one or two curated public journals of activity over the past 30 days that do not have trust and safety violations. They also participated in Flipboard’s community programs. Accounts will be alerted of their federated status via email.

Although Flipboard is working to federate its users’ accounts by default, people can “unfederate” by turning off the “Federate” button in Flipboard’s settings.

In addition to the newly federated magazines, Flipboard is also bringing a more integrated federated experience to its own app. With the release arriving Thursday (ver. 4.3.25), Flipboard users will be able to see their new fediverse followers in the Flipboard Following tab, while their Flipboard notifications will now include fediverse reactions and conversations.

This notification window will now contain three sections: Replies, Activity and News. In Replies, users will be able to see and respond to posts from people on both Flipboard and fediverse, as well as any other fediverse @mentions. When they respond, their response is also sent back to fediverse, making Flipboard more of a fediverse client app than before. The Activity tab, meanwhile, will show users likes, follows, and boosts (fediverse’s take on the retweet), along with other Flipboard activity. The News section (previously called Content) will now feature breaking news and other stories recommended by the Flipboard editorial team.

The company had already started curating content for diverse users across a handful of “newsrooms” (dedicated fediverse accounts) that directed users to interesting topical articles and links. There is a broader view News table, in addition to those dedicated to Technology, Culture It is Science. This existing curation could help power the newly renamed News section in the Flipboard app.