On Thursday, Flipboard unveiled its new ‘social websites’—an innovative platform designed to empower creators and publishers by consolidating conversations from various open social web platforms into one controllable space. This move signifies a shift towards decentralised social media, where communities maintain greater ownership over their content.

The launch of these social websites marks the first web-based extension of Surf, Flipboard’s reader app that allows users to explore and engage with the open social web. Creators can now easily bring together people and conversations from different sources into one hub, making it easier for them to build and manage their communities.

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue highlights the benefits: 'Social websites help podcasters, creators and publications build communities around their work and control the experience, including the algorithm.' This means that rather than starting a community from scratch, content creators can leverage existing conversations and integrate them into their own platforms. Examples include The Verge, Wired and Rolling Stone among others, who have already partnered with Flipboard to create social websites for their readers.

Creating a Surf feed is straightforward; users simply visit surf.social, sign up, and follow the prompts to add sources, assign community hashtags, and set filters. Once set up, owners can customise their domains to share the experience with others. While this is still in its early stages, Flipboard envisions a future where social websites are just the beginning of more advanced customisation tools.