Gingko developers part ways, development to continue

Posted by Dr Andus
Aug 22, 2014 at 08:26 PM

Prion wrote:
Maybe I am wrong but I read this mail as an indication that Gingko may
>not be profitable enough to support two people, which (if correct) might
>not be the fault of the Gingko team per se as many innovative online
>authoring platforms have already fallen by the wayside, see e.g.
>Editorially.

For a startup, I think they’ve not only proven the concept and created a prototype but they actually have a finished product and some very enthusiastic customers. So it seems to me that they are having a marketing problem. They may have been targeting the wrong market (individual subscribers interested in outlining and writing) and they are lacking the marketing muscle to sell the product more vigorously.

This could be an opportunity for a bigger player to acquire Gingko and either integrate the service into an existing product (such as an office suite, a word processor, another type of outliner or mind mapper) and/or reposition it to a different market and start promoting it.

E.g. it would be the perfect tool for academic writers (educators and students). It could be a corporate product to be sold to universities, so they could provide it to their staff and students. E.g. Blackboard Inc. could easily bundle it with their course management software (they already offer blogging software, wikis etc. as part of such campus-wide intranets).

Of course such an acquisition could also ruin the product (or remove it from the retail market) - but maybe there is a chance that it might get the resources to survive and be developed further.