Flipping Through Digital Pages With Mike McCue

Although Flipboard is Mike McCue’s latest venture, in some ways it’s old hat. After all, if you loosely define Flipboard as a browser of sorts, it’s the fourth browser he has been involved with. (Paper Software, Netscape and Tellme were his earlier forays.)

McCue downplayed concerns that Flipboard appropriates others’ content. He said he gets more requests from publishers looking to share more content than from those seeking to have Flipboard include less stuff. He said that the company is looking to make money with publishers, not ride on their backs.

He also talked about the company’s current pilot program, in which publishers can work with Flipboard to customize their publications on the iPad app. (Disclosure: All Things Digital is part of Flipboard’s new publisher beta.)

Flipboard remains an iPad-only proposition, but McCue said the company is tinkering with other platforms in the labs, such as the iPhone. They haven’t worked with Android tablets, however, because that would mean hiring a bunch of Android engineers.