It?s official: Site Selection?s editorial and graphic excellence now extends from the printed page to its cyberspace base. The magazine recently won awards in both categories in 1999?s ?Awards for Publications Excellence? (APEX) competition.
Sponsored by Springfield, Va.-based Communications Concepts, APEX?s 11th annual global competition drew a record 4,900 entries. APEX cited SS for ?excellence and effectiveness? in the categories of ?Magazine and Journal Writing? and ?Web Site? (www.siteselection.com). Those honors mark multiple APEX awards for Site Selection for the fourth consecutive year (the only four years in which the magazine has entered the APEX race).
?Competition was intense, and the quality level was exceptional,? said John De Lellis, editor and publisher of Communications Concepts, in announcing 1999?s award winners.
A number of highly regarded publishing and business concerns were also among 1999?s APEX winners, including The Boston Globe, Chief Executive Magazine, Commercial Investment Real Estate, the Peter F. Drucker Foundation, Forbes/IBM Publications, Institutional Real Estate Investor, The International Monetary Fund, The Los Angeles Times, Robb Report and Simon & Schuster.
Judges: ?Editorial, Graphic Excellence?
Making up the 1999 APEX judging panel were veteran professional journalists De Lellis; Paul Fisher, Communication Concepts senior evaluator and a former University of Missouri School of Journalism professor, and Nancy Rathbun Scott, contributing editor with Writing That Works: The Business Communications Report.
?The APEX ?99 Awards,? De Lellis explained, ?were based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the success of the entry — in the opinion of the judges — in achieving overall communications effectiveness and excellence.?
?Our winning entries fit those criteria well, I think,? said Jack Lyne, Site Selection executive editor, who won the APEX writing award for his editorial output from SS?s October 1998 issue.
?Our writing has previously won APEX awards, which we certainly hope to continue to do, but the award for our cyberspace offerings is a first,? Lyne added. ?Our Web site?s aesthetics and user-friendliness have progressed by leaps and bounds with the first-rate redesign by Webmaster Gary Nickerson, who?s a former print media art director. In addition, we?ve added significant freshness to our Web site content, with new items coming online continually.?
Above right: One of SS’s Winning Entries
In addition to SS?s award-winning content, the magazine?s Web site now also includes ?The Site Selection Online Insider.? A unique feature in the industry, the Insider offers ongoing updates of features that include ?Blockbuster Deal of the Week,? ?Top Incentives Deals,? ?Editor’s Choice Web Picks of the Week? and ?Snapshots from the Field.?
IDRCNet, SiteNet Also Make Major Inroads
?Cyberspace,? Lyne added, ?is one area in which both the magazine and the entire company have made major inroads.?
Lyne cited the expanded member services menus on the Web site for the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world?s preeminent corporate real estate association. The online IDRC Chapter Resource Center ?for example, has been significantly strengthened,? Lyne said, and the names of 6,000 ?affiliated members? have been added to the Electronic Membership Directory.
?We?ve also made dramatic changes on SiteNet (www.sitenet.com) that will make it one of the most important portals to the real estate industry,? Lyne added. ?SiteNet, for example, now has daily updates on breaking real estate news stories and a live stock ticker, and there?s much more to come.?
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