Flipboard is making good on a significant fediverse promise. Late final yr, on the identical time it introduced it could be switching user accounts to ActivityPub, Flipboard stated it deliberate to let customers observe customers on federated platforms that used ActivityPub from the Flipboard app. Beginning Tuesday, that function is right here, which means you could observe individuals from locations like Mastodon, Threads, and Pixelfed proper inside Flipboard.
Flipboard will function fediverse profiles in a number of other ways within the app. Flipboard’s search will present fediverse accounts, for instance, whereas the Discover tab may have editorially curated suggestions, in accordance with a press launch. In a screenshot shared by Flipboard, the Discover part has a “Fediverse” tab that’s populated with profiles like Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel’s Threads account and Mike Masnick’s Mastodon account, and you’ll observe these accounts with a faucet.
When you’ll have the ability to see posts from federated accounts on different platforms, you received’t have the ability to reply to or like these posts from Flipboard until your Flipboard account is additionally federated, which is probably not the case for everybody. Flipboard has solely turned that on for some accounts thus far, and if yours isn’t federated but, you’ll have the ability to request for that to occur, Flipboard’s Marci McCue tells The Verge.
Nonetheless, Flipboard’s fediverse enlargement may make the app a one-stop store to your information and social media posts from the individuals you’re most eager about. I’m intrigued by the thought; I normally preserve my article feeds and my social feeds in separate apps, however I can see the way it might be helpful to mix them each.
Flipboard has been a vocal supporter of federation. The corporate created its personal Mastodon occasion (Flipboard.social) in 2023, and CEO Mike McCue has written and talked about how massive a deal he thinks federation is. However because of issues like this Flipboard replace and the newly added means in Threads to see replies to your federated posts, the lofty guarantees of federated social networking have gotten extra of a actuality.