AOP Introduces New Award Categories to Celebrate Partnership and Innovation

The UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) announces the launch of its 2005 AOP Online Publishing Awards today. New categories to be introduced at the London Hilton on 7th October, will include Commercial partnership 2005, Use of new digital platform 2005, and Cross-media project 2005, reflecting the rapidly changing digital publishing landscape.

In recognition of the opportunities created by the web for developing dynamic and successful relationships with advertisers, agencies and suppliers, AOP has introduced the category Commercial partnership 2005. It has also responded to the growing importance of mobile, email, broadband, blogs and RSS, with the introduction of the category, Use of new digital platform 2005.

The AOP Online Publishing Awards 2005 will also applaud integration and the creation of original content and ideas across a mix of media in the category Cross-media project 2005. What were formerly known as the editor and digital product or service awards, re-emerge as Editorial team 2005 and Website 2005.

Bill Murray, chairman of AOP and managing director of group business information strategy at Haymarket Publishing, says: "The AOP Online Publishing Awards have now entered their fourth year and are firmly established as the showcase of the very best our industry has to offer. With 13 awards spanning a range of publishing areas, the AOP Awards represent a unique opportunity for publishers to gain industry recognition for their achievements over the past 12 months."

Alexandra White, director of AOP, adds: "AOP is committed to promoting excellence in digital publishing, and to showing both the consumer and the business worlds what high quality content, products and services they can find online."

The AOP Online Publishing Awards 2005 will be presented at a gala awards dinner on 7th October at the London Hilton, Park Lane, following a one-day Conference on online publishing issues.

The deadline for entries is 29 July 2005 and entry forms are downloadable from www.ukaop.org.uk/awards

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Editor’s notes

About AOP

The UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) is an industry body representing online publishing companies that create original, branded, quality content. AOP champions the interests of approximately 160 publishing companies from diverse backgrounds including newspaper and magazine publishing, TV and radio broadcasting, and pure online media. Together they publish around 1,150 products and attract more than five billion page impressions per month.

AOP presents a unified voice to industry and Government, specifically to address issues and concerns relating to all areas of online publishing. AOP publishes original research, hosts forums, conferences and events, covering a range of topics from paid-for-content, subscription models and data protection, through to copyright, content management, new technologies and audience measurement.

Last year AOP produced the highly acclaimed research ‘Reaching the Online Elite’ and every year it delivers the annual member benchmarking study, the ‘AOP Census’.

The AOP autumn Online Publishing Conference & Awards is its annual industry event. It attracts the biggest names in online publishing to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the industry and celebrate outstanding achievement.

Members include Associated New Media, BBC, BSkyB, Capital Radio Group, Channel 4, CNET Networks, Dennis Interactive, The Economist Group, Emap, FT.com, Future Publishing, Guardian Unlimited, Haymarket Publishing, Independent Digital, IPC Media, ITV Online, News International, Reed Business Information, Telegraph Group Limited, VNU Business Publications and Which?. In addition, PPAi (Periodical Publishers Association Interactive) retains a corporate seat on AOP board: representing the interests of magazine publishers online.

For further information, please contact:

Katy Howell
immediate future Limited
0845 408 2031
pressoffice@immediatefuture.co.uk