• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 1, 2010

A number of major newspaper publishers have made big investments in Ongo Inc., a start-up with plans to launch a new social media service that allows users to share news and other information online by year's end. Ongo said it raised a total $12 million in an initial round of investments from Gannett, The New York Times Co., and the Washington Post Co.

While few details are available about the forthcoming service, Alex Kazim, Ongo Inc.'s founder and chief executive officer, stated: "We are building Ongo to reflect the many ways consumers prefer to read, organize and share digital news."

Previously, Kazim spent nine years with Ebay, where he served as president of the company's Skype subsidiary, among other roles.

The service is designed to allow users to share content from multiple publishers, but it's unclear whether publishers must be vested in the site to participate -- that is, whether it will be a proprietary site limited to Gannett, NYTCO, WaPo, and any other investors, or will be an open platform.

However, the last couple of years have seen print publishers banding together in unexpected ways to increase the reach and profitability of their online content.

In June 2009, representatives from roughly 24 newspaper publishers met in Chicago to discuss coordinating a push to increase compensation for online content. The move was widely seen as the preamble to subsequent plans to begin charging for online content by big newspapers such as The New York Times, which is preparing to implement a paywall around some content early next year.

Separately in August, NYT revealed plans for Press Engine, a new service to help other newspaper publishers create online apps, drawing on the NYT's experience creating its own apps for the iPhone and iPad. Press Engine is supposed to launch in the fourth quarter.

Newspaper publishers have also been forming ad hoc content-sharing partnerships, facilitated by new digital publishing technology. Most recently, Publish2 launched a new online news exchange that allows publishers to create customized content-sharing networks of varying size.

At launch, the Publish2 News Exchange includes newswires created by TechCrunch, Engadget, Politics Daily, Daily Finance, AOL Small Business and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

On the magazine side, in October 2009, Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith, and Hearst announced plans to collaborate on the development of an online and mobile platform for digital magazine sales and distribution.