Two Websites Win Online Awards
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Two Wick news outlets have been honored for their innovative work online. The awards were announced Aug. 8 by the Local Media Association, a newspaper industry organization with more than 2,000 members in the United States and Canada.
The Tucson Weekly took first prize for Best Blog Initiatives for all weekly newspapers. The award was given for The Ranch, a “daily dispatch” of commentary from Weekly staffers, interns and contributors.
The blog has existed since 2006, but, Weekly Editor Jimmy Boegle says, “It only really got cool over the last couple of years.” That is because new software and the addition of a Web producer allowed the staff to update it from seven to 15 times each workday and on weekends as well. “Lots of fun,” noted an unnamed contest judge. “It’s breezy, brief and easy to read. … Downright enjoyable.”
The Half Moon Bay Review took first place for Best Use of Multimedia, in the under 100,000 circulation, non-daily category. The Review’s award was for a project the newspaper dubs, “Walkabout.”
Walkabout is a mapping technology that allows viewers to overlay a local map with tweets, Instagram images, Wikipedia entries and many other types of information scraped from the Web. The newspaper also lists area beaches on its site and is working to add a walking tour of historic spots that visitors to the website can pull up on their smartphones.
“Walkabout is powered by GatheringPoint, a Half Moon Bay company that provided us with the map and expertise, free of charge,” said Review Editor Clay Lambert. “It has the potential to be used in exciting ways.”
“This,” said one unnamed judge, “is pretty fantastic.”