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Hello again, and welcome back to\u00a0Fast Company<\/em>\u2019s Plugged In<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n More than 15 months ago, I\u00a0wrote about Surf, a discovery engine for the social web from Flipboard\u2014itself an\u00a0earlier twist on the same concept dating to the early days of the iPad<\/a>. At the time, it was still a rough draft, and in private beta. Rather than rushing it out to a broader audience, Flipboard took its time. The app went through a series of revisions that were both numerous and substantial, ending up significantly different than the intriguing prototype I tried in December 2024.<\/p>\n This week, the company finally deemed Surf ready for prime time. It\u2019s now live in web form at Surf.social; a beta Android version is in the Google Play store. (The iPhone and iPad versions still have a waitlist<\/a>.) If you\u2019ve grown jaded about social networking or the web in general, I recommend taking a look.<\/p>\n Surf\u2019s sheer ambition makes it a challenge to describe coherently. It weaves together material from Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads\u2014along with YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, and articles\u2014and yet it isn\u2019t really a substitute for those services\u2019 own apps. It\u2019s a way to create and share custom feeds about your interests that run on autopilot once you\u2019ve set them up, but that\u2019s optional\u2014you can also just lurk and peruse other people\u2019s feeds. And even though it runs inside a web browser, it feels a little like what browsers themselves might have become if they hadn\u2019t largely stopped evolving almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n All I know for sure is that using Surf leaves me feeling better about the state of the internet. I am aware that the net is rapidly filling up<\/a> with AI-generated slop, and that, furthermore, the technology\u2019s impact on search and advertising threatens to disincentivize<\/a> humans from bothering with the medium at all. But for now, there\u2019s still lots of great stuff out there\u2014and Surf is a refreshingly inventive way to find it.<\/p>\n It would be inaccurate to describe Surf as an algorithm-free zone. Like Flipboard before it, it uses computer science to help identify what individual pieces of content are about so they can be woven together thematically. Unlike Facebook or TikTok, however, it isn\u2019t a giant machine designed, above all, to keep you scrolling. Flipboard worked with individuals and outlets such as The Verge<\/i>, 404 Media<\/i>, and Rolling Stone<\/i> to ensure that the app launched with a bevy of feeds worth following. The result feels curated, not stuffed to capacity.<\/p>\n Even though Surf is decidedly human, it\u2019s organized around interests and passions, not friendships or followers. It\u2019s possible to skim individual Bluesky and Mastodon accounts, but that\u2019s secondary to subscribing to topic-based feeds. Not surprisingly, politics and current events are available in great supply. But so are quieter pursuits that can get drowned out in the din of social networking in its more conventional form: books, cooking, hobbies, and fandoms of all kinds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n