Europe awards top “Emerging Media” project

The BBC’s Lab UK from Britain has won the top prize in the “Emerging Media” category at Europe’s largest radio, television and internet awards.

swissinfo.ch’s “Border Stories” project was one of the projects shortlisted in the Emerging Media category of the Prix Europa competition, held annually in Berlin.

The pan-European event was attended by well over 1,000 delegates from more than 40 countries. The winners in each category were chosen by a jury, consisting of representatives from each shortlisted project, making the selection process transparent and democratic.

“Impressive among the Emerging Media entries was the integration of Social Media to encourage user participation, whether a BBC production highlighting common objects to tell world history or a Belgian website promoting amateur artists,” said Dale Bechtel, representing swissinfo.ch’s Border Stories.

The British winner, BBC Lab UK, is a website where members of the public can take part in real science experiments.

“As far as Border Stories was concerned, our European peers on the jury applauded the use of free online tools such as Google apps to tell the story of John Harlin’s adventure around Switzerland’s borders and Facebook to attract a new audience.”

“Border Stories is an attempt by swissinfo.ch to answer two fundamental questions for all online media today: how to include relevant external content and what editorial use can be made of new technologies.

Several times a day, John Harlin sends reports, pictures and videos from his mobile phone, which are published as part of an online diary on the English section of the swissinfo.ch website.

Thanks to a geotagging feature, readers are able to track his progress in real time on a special map of Switzerland from Google Maps and discover the places he is reporting from. The adventurer’s pictures are posted on Picasa and thousands of fans on Facebook receive updates directly to their profiles.