Notices by Mike McCue (mike@flipboard.social)

Major Surf beta dropping today which introduces Starter Sets for the open social web. Now you can benefit from other people's curation to quickly and easily make highly useful, personalized feeds for each of your interests.

For example, combine "Tech Builders and Thinkers", "Guardians of The Fediverse" and "Tech posts from My Mastodon Follows" to get a personalized tech feed that includes interesting people and posts from Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, Pixelfed, Bluesky and more.

More info here:

https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/surf-starter-sets-make-custom-feed-building-easy/

I loved talking with @rudyfraser.com for this episode of #dotsocial

Rudy is one of the most visionary builders and thinkers of the social web today. He helped me realize that the success of the social web is not about killer apps. It's about killer communities. Once you internalize this insight, the entire world looks different.

Check it out here on our PeerTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.

https://flipboard.video/w/2x3uGwDLDtiiNHEzKTydKQ

A few days ago I had the opportunity to sit down with @leo @jeffjarvis and @parismartineau to talk about the open social web and the work we're doing with @surf

It was a wide ranging discussion and an absolute pleasure to go deep on all things fediverse with these legends.

You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwd14SCeTmg

If you’re on the Surf beta check out this really well curated feed by @ben. I’ve been using it on a regular basis. Super informative and timely.

Speaking Truth to Power
https://surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01jf18nkhmm632b8qtret48113

#SurfFeeds

Quoting @caseynewton who warned a year ago that Google was putting the web into a state of managed decline.

"AI overviews have resulted in declines of 70 to 80 percent in the click-through rates to the web pages from which they derive their information. That’s 70 to 80 percent fewer visits to web pages..."

https://www.platformer.news/safari-search-decline-apple-google/

I've been so deep in product development lately. It's nice to come up for air to check in with folks here and see all the great work they're doing. I love this community.

Just posted an awesome discussion with @chrismessina for the latest episode of Dot Social. We went deep on the power of the hashtag, the future of identity and reputation online, and the potential of using AI for moderation at scale.

Check it out on PeerTube or wherever you get your podcasts:

https://flipboard.video/w/rXvDwHv32imgBiGrZykhxW

Last week at #SXSW I interviewed @molly0xfff about owning your work on the web, getting it discovered and making it sustainable. She explained how she does this with http://mollywhite.net and offered pragmatic steps that anyone can take. If you love the web, you'll love this talk.

https://schedule.sxsw.com/2025/events/PP147154

@dansup absolutely love seeing this!

Pixelfed is the way.

Just closed the #fediversehouse at #sxsw after two amazing days. Loved being IRL with so many people who are building the open social web together. Let’s do it again next year!

@liaizon @pixelfed @peertube I absolutely love both of these services.

When I went to SXSW in 2023, few had heard of the fediverse. This year is very different thanks to the work of legions of builders and evangelizers over the past two years.

On Sunday and Monday we're hosting the first fediverse house at #SXSW with some great people like @molly0xfff @pluralistic @mmasnick.bsky.social @evan @davidimel.com @pcottle @jasonkoebler and many more.

Stop by if you're in town and say hello. You can RSVP here (nearly 1,000 RSVPs so far!) https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse-house/

There are so many great apps and services in the fediverse. To gain a better understanding of these I spoke with @atomicpoet for the latest episode of DotSocial. As many of you already know, Chris is a long time fediverse enthusiast with a lot of insight into the past, present and future of the social web.

We had a really fun discussion. Check it out on our PeerTube instance or wherever you get your podcasts.

https://flipboard.video/w/ajzcg7wtH4pDxsvB3oCoVs

@BeAware @surf very soon!!!

@dansup I love fediDB.

This is insane. And unconstitutional.

For the record, we'll be keeping our DEI programs at Flipboard which have been a big positive for our team and our business.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/pam-bondi-trump-doj-memo-prosecute-dei-companies.html

Ladies and gentlemen. the weekend.

Surfing Late Night
https://surf.social/feed/surf%2Fcustom%2F01jcrw8352hedbcc9p6tteeekt

#SurfFeeds

I am so loving #pixelfed right now! It really is like what Instagram used to be. It feels great to be sharing photos again.

You can follow me at @mmccue right here on Mastodon thanks to the magic of the fediverse. I also highly recommend creating an account for yourself. It's a lot of fun and the photos there are awesome.

Well, here we go.

I'm thankful for this place as we enter an insane new era. Hope we all come out together and stronger on the other side.

@jupiter_rowland @mikedev Good Q for @tchambers