View the list of Finalists and Winners Here

Eighteen websites have been honoured as the best in online publishing at the first ever Canadian Online Publishing Awards. The winners were announced October 26 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto in front of a crowd of over 150 people. This unique awards program, produced by Masthead, recognizes excellence in online editorial and innovation by Canadian magazine and website publishers.

Top winners include:

• The Tyee, which had six nominations going into the evening, and came away with three top prizes for Best Website Design, Best News, and Best Community Feature.
• St. Joseph Media with three awards for Torontolife.com, Fashionmagazine.com, and the 20-Minute Supper Club.
• Vancouver-based Canada Wide Media with a total of two awards, including Best Blog for Home [Eco]nomics and Best Article Series for its Ecofashion News on Granville Online.
• The top-performing B2B publisher was IT World Canada, which won two awards, including Best Overall Online-Only Website and Best News.

Fifty-seven finalists also received certificates at last night’s reception.

Over 250 entries were received, representing large and small publishers from all over the country with magazine websites and online-only websites.  Entrants were judged in two divisions: the red division for consumer, custom, religious, and public association websites and the blue division, for business-to-business, professional association, farm, and scholarly websites.

Websites competed in up to ten categories ranging from best news articles to best design to overall best website. All entries in each category were reviewed by an independent judging panel of highly regarded industry professionals and experts. The panels determined the winner and list of finalists in each category, based on their own expertise and criteria.