U.S. publishers Gannett Company Inc., The New York Times Co. and The Washington Post Co. have invested US$12 million in a start-up company called Ongo, which is developing a news aggregation website that will draw content from major publishers, The Wall Street Journal revealed today.

"We are building Ongo to reflect the many ways consumers prefer to read, organize and share digital news," Ongo's founder and chief executive officer Alex Kazim stated in a press release. The service is expected to go online by the end of the year.

In a statement, The Washington Post explained that its investment was lead by the company's interest "in experimenting with different ways to experience digital news and information." The three media groups have been discussing the joint project with Kazin, a former eBay executive who was president of Skype before it was sold, for more than a year, a spokesperson of The New York Times said to The Wall Street Journal.

In recent months, newspaper publishers have started to collaborate on packing and delivering digital content in a profitable way. For instance, News Corp is studying the creation of "a cable TV-type business for news, allowing consumers to set up one bill to access digital content from multiple media companies," WSJ reported.

In August, The New York Times announced that by the end of the year it would launch Press Engine, a digital publishing platform that will make it easier for publishers to create iPhone and iPad applications.