Bloomberg Businessweek does not need a paywall, does need iPad app

David Kaplan of PaidContent.org interviewed Bloomberg Businessweek president Paul Bascobert, who was recently put in charge of all of Bloomberg’s consumer news operations.

Andrews writes, “The magazine is currently readying its iPad app, which is scheduled to be released sometime in the next few weeks. Bascobert demurred on offering up specifics about the app. ‘There’s definitely some surprises we think,’ he said. ‘We thought about the context and what readers would want at their fingertips. It’s an app that doesn’t focus on gadgetry, but rather on just being a great reading experience.’

“A number of publishers I’ve spoken to tend to see their magazine or newspaper apps as providing an opening to a new, different audience from the print product. Bascobert believes the BBW app will resonate with existing readers, serving as a supplement to viewing it on the PC and Blackberries. ‘I can see someone reading the iPad app at home at night, apart from checking their Blackberries on the way home from work or reading the website during the day,’ he said.

“He wouldn’t say what the price of the app would be, but he did have some thoughts about paywalls.

“Asked about a tweet from paidContent UK’s Robert Andrews from a session at the Guardian’s Changing Media Summit, where Bascobert suggested that BBW could charge for online access in the ‘future,’ he told me, ‘Well, Twitter doesn’t allow for a lot of context. I was asked, ‘Would you charge for BW.com?’ I said maybe, someday. But they advantage of our model, with the terminal business helping to support the other content businesses, we don’t have to charge for the website.'”

Read more here.