This is a guest blog by Howard Solomon, editor of our sister web site, IT World Canada.
I’m pleased to tell readers that the hard work of IT World Canada’s staff has been rewarded with three prizes in the 2013 Canadian Online Publishing Awards
Computing Canada was the winner of a gold medal for best digital edition replica of an online Web site in the B2B category, ITBusiness.ca won silver for the best B2B mobile optimized Website and Canadian CIO won silver for the best B2B Web site.
COPA honours work on digital publications including websites, tablet editions, digital replicas and apps.
For the people who work with me at Computing Canada, where I hang my other hat as editor, the gold medal is a tribute to their hard efforts.
The digital edition is an interactive version of the news we put out daily that includes embedded video and audio content as well as links within news stories to other content.
Named for the winning edition were senior writer Nestor Arellano, who I depend on daily; contributor and former ITWorldCanada.com and Computing Canada editor Dave Webb; contributor and former staff writer Brian Bloom; creative director Jeff Coles and senior graphic designer Mel Manasan.
ITBusiness.ca, which brings technology news to small and mid-sized organizations, is edited by Brian Jackson. Also named for their work on the winning entry were staff writer Candice So, creative director Jeff Coles, video editor Tyson Dover, lead designer Jeff Radecki and publisher Fawn Annan.
Jackson says the winning entry was based on a re-launch of the ITB Web site in February that uses HTML 5 and CCS 3 to work on any mobile platform. Many features on the full Web site are also available on mobile including video, comment and social sharing.
Canadian CIO is still edited by long-time ITWC staffer and former editor-in-chief Shane Schick, who is now a technology writer and editor.
The awards themselves are a typically noisy affair and many of our staff came out to support our entries. I’m grateful to them for their work, as well as to publisher Fawn Annan and IT World Canada chairman Michael Atkins for their efforts.
To put some faces to those names, in the photo above those who were able to make it to the awards this week were, from the left, CIO Jim Love, ITB editor Brian Jackson, myself, IT director Matt Panchalingam, Jeff Radecki, assistant editor Jeff Jedras and Nestor Arellano.
I guess grammar, punctuation and spelling are not counted in these awards. I’d consider myself average at best, yet I continually find mistakes in all of these publications. This article is no exception! I shudder to think what the other nominees are like.