Nineteen websites are winners at first Digipub Awards for online publishers

The Awards seek to reward inspiring initiatives by websites in English and Indian languages.

The winners of the Digipub Awards, India's first such initiative for web publishers, were announced yesterday evening at an energetic, fun-filled ceremony in Gurgaon.

The awards were part of Digipub World, a two-day convention for web publishers which consisted of conference, awards, exhibition and master classes. The event has been organised by afaqs!

Team The Quint awarded English language, General News and Features website of the year
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Aaj Tak awarded Indian Language, General News and Features website of the year
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Team Bloomberg Quint, awarded English language Business Website of the year
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Gaana.com awarded English language Sports and Entertainment website of the year
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Team OnlyMyHealth collecting English language Lifestyle and Infotainment website of the year award
Click here to enlargeThe Digipub Awards aim to recognise and reward inspiring initiatives by websites in India across a spectrum of parameters: from great content to brand partnership to overall user experience.

Best Article Series Gold Winner - The Quint
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Best Article Series Silver Winner Indian Languages - Aaj Tak
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Best Article Series Silver winner - Mathrubhumi
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Best Article Series Winner - Hindustan Times
Click here to enlargeThe awards, which saw the participation of nearly all major publishing groups and websites, were dominated by a newbie to the online space: The Quint - the site was launched in March 2015.

Best Use of Social Media, Gold Winner - Filmfare
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Best Use Of Social Media, Silver Winner - The Quint
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Best Use Of Social Media, Silver Winner - Aaj Tak
Click here to enlargeThe news platform, promoted by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur, bagged five golds and two silvers at Digipub Awards. As if that was not enough, The Quint went on to bag the prestigious Website of the Year (General News & Features) in English.

The Quint won Gold in the following categories: Best Article Series; Best Design; Best Infographic Design; Best Interactive Story and Best Use of Video.

Best Use Of Video, Gold Winner - The Quint
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Best Use Of Video, Silver Winner - India Today
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Best Use Of Video, Indian Languages, Gold Winner - 101 India
Click here to enlargeIn all, 19 websites were winners at Digipub Awards. The trophy is known as the Golden Wwwave because it has been inspired by the www prefix.

Best Innovation in Publishing, Gold Winner - Wittyfeed
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Best Innovation in Publishing, Silver Winner- Play To Potential Podcast
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Best Marketing Campaign for a Publisher, Gold Winner - The Hindu
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Best Marketing Campaign For A Publisher, Silver Winner - GPlus
Click here to enlargeDigipub Awards consists of 10 categories, with separate awards for websites in English and those in Indian Languages. Plus there are four Website of the Year Awards: in Business, General News & Entertainment, Sports & Entertainment and Lifestyle & Infotainment.

Best Brand Partnership, Gold Winner - Filter Copy
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Best Brand Partnership, Silver Winner - Wittyfeed
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Best Brand Partnership, Silver Winner, Indian Languages- Jagran
Click here to enlargeThere are separate awards by language because English websites have been around much longer and have had a headstart over Indian language sites.

Best Design Gold - The Quint
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Best Design, Indian Languages, Silver - Mathrubhumi
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Best Design Silver Winner - ABP Live
Click here to enlargeThe website for Aaj Tak - part of India Today group - also did extremely well, winning the Website of the Year (General News & Features, Hindi) as well as two silver metals.

Best Infographic Design, Gold - The Quint
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Best Interactive Story, Gold - The Quint
Click here to enlargeAmong Indian Language publishers, the Kerala-based Mathrubhumi did best, returning home with two Silvers: in Best Design and Best Article Series.

Best Native Advertising, Silver Winner - Scroll
Click here to enlargeAmong the winners for the Website of the Year award were Bloomberg Quint and Moneycontrol jointly for Business. Gaana picked up the honour in the Sports & Entertainment category while Onlymyhealth - part of Jagran group - was recognised as Website of the Year (Lifestyle & Infotainment).

All the winners of Digipub Awards 2017
Click here to enlargeOther websites to win Gold were: Filter Copy (Best Brand Partnership), Wittyfeed (Best Innovation in Publishing), The Hindu (Best Marketing Campaign by a Publisher), Filmfare (Best Use of Social Media) and 101 India (Best Use of Video, Hindi).

Because of the nature of the entries, the jurors had a wide variety of backgrounds: they included agency executives, online publishers, marketers, designers, video experts and editors.

Sreekant Khandekar, Curator of Digipub World, says, "It is easy to forget that web publishing in India is more than 20 years old. Many interesting experiments are being tried online in the content game. Digipub Awards are a way of capturing the most exciting efforts in a single place - and rewarding them."