Comments on: Ongo… where?

By: The Morning Lowdown 01-31-11 — paidContent

The Morning Lowdown 01-31-11 — paidContent — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:56:33 +0000

[...] which he finds analogous to indifferent philanthropists donating broken toys to poor children. [Frédéric Filloux Monday Note] If you like this story, please share [...]

By: novelty gifts

novelty gifts — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:12:21 +0000

I truly enjoy studying on this site, it holds great articles .

By: Read, Share and Destroy | Monday Note

Read, Share and Destroy | Monday Note — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:08:01 +0000

[...] hasn’t shown a great deal of progress since I reviewed it in a previous Monday Note (see Ongo…Where?). Its nice look aside, it persists in putting on the same page a story on US troops withdrawing [...]

By: USA escort girls

USA escort girls — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:48:31 +0000

Monthly previously, I’m hunting comparable area in spite of this can’t very realize its off. A new thumbs upwards because of this a person.

By: OnGo, pero ¿hacia donde? | 2shareworld

OnGo, pero ¿hacia donde? | 2shareworld — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:11:32 +0000

[...] Share [...]

By: Publish

Publish — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:27:58 +0000

Newspapers could very well be dead. Still relevant, but not like they were. We’ll have to wait and see, but what I see in something like Ongo is a typical example of what happens when some aging nerds from the Valley get funding and think they know what people want today. Guys, the world’s changed if you haven’t noticed. Nobody cares what you think we should read. We get it. You don’t like noise. If you were really up on your demographics, you’d realize that people over the age of 35 start going your way. But it’s a specific demographic.

Enough to support your business? I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.

For me, the jig is up. Big publishers are agenda-driven, money sucking institutions. If anybody believes what they write, their idiots. Information that is free and is supported by ads is the dominant way that is leading us into the future.

By: Meandme

Meandme — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:59:01 +0000

Nobody needs this. It’s an RSS Reader really. All the “save the world” stuff just to make money. I don’t think people are going to bite on this. Information is free, from Blogs to other news sites. Forget Ongo, just download something like Reeder or Flipboard. Now that’s content aggregation done right, and you won’t have to pay for it.

The problem here is that either all the news sites go behind paywalls, or they don’t. It’s all or nothing because people will just go to other free sources. We’ve seen what’s happened when they’ve tried to do it. Their traffic drops in some cases 99%. If they all don’t do it, I highly doubt you’ll see people paying for something that can get free with RSS Readers.

And Blogs are really turning out to be contenders and not pretenders. They are populating the Web and challenging these larger publishers. Say what you want about Blogs, but this is the state of the industry.

By: Alex Kazim

Alex Kazim — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:27:29 +0000

Thanks for the thoughtful write-up. A few things:

Completely agree that UI design is a challenge in an aggregated product where the feed quality is mixed and the content is changing every minute. I think you’ll see the product evolve in the next few months to have a more compelling layout of the content.

On the NY Times and the FT, we would of course like to provide the full version to our users. I can’t divulge the issues here other than to say that it’s not a question of their commitment and that we’re working on it.

On pricing, these are actually set by the publishers and in some cases is consistent with their pricing for the Kindle. I think we’ll see these move around as the publishers understand how to price their content vis-a-vis offline print, ad-supported web sites, devices and Ongo.

And one quick thing: Rajiv Dutta is on our board but Elevation is not an investor.

By: The Morning Lowdown 01-31-11 | How to Business

The Morning Lowdown 01-31-11 | How to Business — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:13:45 +0000

[...] » Subscription-based news aggregator Ongo’s debuted this past week with support from the NYT, Gannett (NYSE:GCI – News) and Washington Post (NYSE:WPO – News). Frédéric Filloux is not too impressed with the layout, the price and what he believes is the “minimal involvement” of its newspaper partners, which he finds analogous to indifferent philanthropists donating broken toys to poor children. [Frédéric Filloux Monday Note] [...]

By: pierina

pierina — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:59:36 +0000

@Ehab comments on the WAPO website quickly brought up the issue of paying for adless news. Most people agree these model is not sustainable in that you can get news adfree using adblocker plus. I think with 12M in the bank, the first thing ongo should do is adopt the premise of monetizing the journalism not simply by eliminating ads and having a direct charge for the story. They need to give people a better reason for paying for the stories. I think ongo is a fairly immature product that is getting into a fairly saturated market with a great number of alternative free solutions. Now if they give you a one stop shop through the subscription paywalls that are about to come up then that is a different thing.

By: Ehab Dahdouli

Ehab Dahdouli — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:16:09 +0000

Ongo does employ human editors, 5 of them: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/01/ongo_launches_offers_ad-free_n.html

By: bivariate

bivariate — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:58:19 +0000

I agree… http://www.mynucleus.org is a much better alternative to ongo. Why pay for free content?

By: pierina

pierina — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:07:59 +0000

I’d go with http://www.MyNucleus.org any day. It doesn’t offer the customization that ongo has but the product is really good and free.

By: Jack D

Jack D — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:19:17 +0000

I checked Ongo out a couple days ago because I was interested in the offer of the best way to get/view news. But after viewing the video tutorial (twice, because I thought I’d missed something important the first time) and browsing the site, it left me believing the offering is little more than a souped-up (but flat, as you say above) RSS feeder that you have to pay for, and that someone with a bit (but not a whole lot) of news editorial experience is responsible for! Smells like something a few Valley execs cooked up with too much spare time on their hands and egos (not necessarily brilliant skills) garnered from experiences at eBay/PP/etc. This would not be the first time big name venture firms kicked a few bucks in such a direction. Isn’t the answer to this news problem going to have an “open” solution?

By: Tweets that mention Ongo… where? | Monday Note -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Ongo… where? | Monday Note -- Topsy.com — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:05:19 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Brissenden, Philippa Thomas and Knut-Arne Futsæter, infokubo. infokubo said: Ongo… where? http://dlvr.it/FQhLZ [...]