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Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

Guardian takes six prizes at AOP awards

By Dominic Ponsford

Guardian News and Media was named consumer digital publisher of the year while Incisive won business digital publisher of the year at the Association of Online Pubishers Awards last night.

The Guardian won six prizes in total including launch of the year for Guardian Open Platform, the innovation prize for its paid-for iPhone app and the research prize for its Word of Mouth Project. It also won prizes for best use of video and top digital individual, for reporter and blogger Matthew Weaver.

AOP described Weaver as one of the first news reporters to use live blogging to cover international and domestic news in 2007.

The judges said: ‘His lightly authored approach to collating many sources from social media, through rival media to multimedia brings new richness to subjects from weather to global affairs.

‘As an on-the-ground reporter he has driven innovation through his enthusiastic adoption of new tools such as Audioboo and Twitter to enhance his journalism. Best of all, he is a generous teacher who shares his skill and collaborates with his colleagues.”

The full list of winners from the 2010 AOP awards: (source AOP)

Digital Publisher – Business

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GOLD AWARD Winner – Incisive Media

AOP: “The strategic vision for Incisive Media in the judging year was based on diversifying revenues, optimising data and maximising effectiveness. Over the last year it has rolled out a new CMS, while integrating and growing online subscriptions revenue, developing and launching new business models, and altogether moving its digital transformation into a higher gear.”

Judges’ comments: ‘Incisive demonstrated a great knowledge of their audience in the judging period, and have shown positive results by truly grasping digital, and placing it at the core of their business.”

Digital Publisher – Consumer

GOLD AWARD Winner – Guardian News and Media

The strategic vision for guardian.co.uk, and all of its digital products has been to adopt an open approach that weaves the Guardian’s journalism into the fabric of the web. By pursuing an open strategy that has community and social media at its heart, GNM has managed to engage users, extend reach, and find new revenue opportunities.

Judges’ comments: ‘Through constant innovation, the Guardian has established itself as a beacon of quality and creativity. They have a true understanding of the web throughout their business and are truly platform agnostic.”

Launch

Winner – Guardian Open Platform – Guardian News & Media

AOP: “The Guardian Open Platform allows web developers to use content from the Guardian to build new services and products, on multiple platforms. The larger vision for the project is to weave the Guardian into the fabric of the web, embedding the brand into the experiences people have across digital platforms, wherever they may be. The Open Platform has already served as a deal accelerator across the Guardian, enabling ad revenue share deals and content licensing agreements that simply wouldn’t have happened before.”

Judges’ comments: ‘GNM’s Open Platform is advanced web thinking in its purest form, achieved through collaboration and creativity. It gives the Guardian brand true global significance.’

Ad Technology Platform

Winner – Maxifier – Magenta Technology & 24/7 Real Media

Editorial Team – Business

Winner – Property Week – UBM

AOP: “The propertyweek.com team’s mission in the judging year was twofold: to transform the site’s brand, look and content focus, and to also establish it as the leading community site for property professionals. By overhauling the look and feel of the site, the 14-strong propertyweek.com team radically changed the digital behaviour of its audience, from consumers of content to an engaged and interactive community.”

Judges’ comments: ‘Investment in editorial and analysis alongside R&D set off their creativity. They demonstrated and appetite for experimentation in a difficult year.’

Editorial Team – Consumer

Winner: Telegraph – Telegraph Media Group

AOP: “Telegraph.co.uk celebrated its 15th birthday last year with the biggest story in TMG’s 155-year-old history. Using the combined weight of its website and newspapers to achieve maximum impact, publishing content first online, in the evening, leading to full coverage during the 10 pm TV news programmes, which in turn helped to drive newspaper sales the following day.

“The complementary nature of web and newspapers in achieving maximum impact vindicated TMG’s integrated newsroom strategy. The online treatment reflected an innovative approach to data that extracted sensational revelations from more than 1.5 million documents. The reporting team built a database giving open, easily searchable access to a formidable level of detail about the expenses claims. These new tools and techniques show the extent to which a news scoop can be amplified to a broader audience, quickly and efficiently, and engage that audience at a much deeper level.”

Judges’ comments: ‘The Telegraph’s editorial team has had a huge impact on its business and the wider world in the judging year.”

Research & Insights Project

Winner – GNM Word of Mouth Research – Guardian News & Media

AOP: “Now regarded not only as a motivation to try a brand but also a measure of advertising impact, word of mouth has become an advertising discipline in its own right – with the objective being to create conversations about brands. But how do you identify those most likely to talk about your brands and to influence others? This research has enabled GNM to underpin the value of its audience to advertisers, demonstrating that they are more connected and influential than the average – an audience of key interest to advertisers. In an increasingly commoditised market, the ability to differentiate our audience other than on the basis of numbers cannot be overstated.”

Judges’ Comments: ‘A bold, wide-ranging and innovative effort to tackle a complex subject.’

Digital Advertising Sales Team

Winner – Future Publishing

Innovation

Winner – The Guardian iPhone app – Guardian News & Media

Cross-Media Project

Winner – BBC Headroom – BBC

AOP: “A wide-reaching, ambitious campaign to make mental health awareness accessible to all, Headroom covered TV, radio, print and online, as well as dedicated festival tents and grassroots projects at libraries and universities to great effect. A consistent look and feel was central to the campaign, with an energetic, positive and bold illustrative style working effortlessly cross-media.”

Judges’ comments: ‘Incorporated a highly creative, effective use of a huge number of channels. BBC Headroom showed real evidence of success in engaging a varied, hard to reach audience.”

Commercial Partnership

Winner – Global Partnership with XBOX360: Lips – Global Radio

Use of Video

Winner – guardian.co.uk – Guardian News & Media

AOP: “The Guardian has shown innovation and creativity in both the form and content of its video output. A small dedicated team produce the core video, while photographers and reporters are also trained to shoot video, which has meant that video output is not a mere copy of the broadcasters’ but something aesthetically unique, combining economy and creativity. The Guardian has also involved a community of amateur film-makers in its video output. The most notable example of this: the footage gathered of police tactics at the G20 protest in the City of London, which revealed that Ian Tomlinson died after an assault by a police officer.”

Judges’ comments: ‘The breadth and quality of coverage, original and innovative productions, and the clever use of third party and audience-generated content was outstanding.”

Use of Mobile

Winner – Autotrader.mobi – Trader Media

AOP: “The mobilisation of Auto Trader followed emerging consumer demands for ‘right here, right now’brand interaction. At the point of purchase, autotrader.mobi enables consumers to compare their chosen car with the market, check the price against the latest actual sales data, and access a full history of their vehicle as well as read independent reviews and buying advice.”

Judges’ comments: ‘The monetisation is a simple and elegant extension of the web model, and one that is clearly a success.”

Digital Editorial Individual

Winner – Matthew Weaver – Guardian News & Media

AOP: “Matthew Weaver became one of the first news reporters to use live blogging to cover international and domestic news in 2007. His lightly authored approach to collating many sources from social media, through rival media to multimedia brings new richness to subjects from weather to global affairs. As an on-the-ground reporter he has driven innovation through his enthusiastic adoption of new tools such as Audioboo and Twitter to enhance his journalism. Best of all, he is a generous teacher who shares his skill and collaborates with his colleagues.”

Judges’ comments: ‘Matthew is a 21st Century journalist using all the digital assets at his disposal to tell great stories.”

Digital Editorial Individual – Shortlist:

  • Guy Cocker, GameSpot UK – CBS Interactive
  • Matt McAlister – Guardian News & Media
  • David Moynihan – NME.COM, IPC Media
  • Faisal Alani – ComputerWeekly.com, RBI
  • Michael Targett – FlightGlobal, RBI
  • Matt Kelly – Mirror.co.uk, Trinity Mirror
  • Iain O’Neil – Property Week, UBM

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