NEW YORK (March 20, 2012)—National Geographic magazine took home the ASME Digital Ellie award for Tablet Edition today. It was honored for its “multimedia storytelling, stunning photography and a lion that roars at the touch.” The magazine also had been nominated for General Excellence, Digital Media; and for Design, Digital Media (for the 7 Billion iPad app). Last year the print edition of National Geographic was recognized as Magazine of the Year by the ASME judges.
The honor comes as National Geographic magazine continues to innovate in the digital space, with an emphasis on daily coverage coming this May in its monthly app. In addition to newsfeeds and the popular Photo of the Day feature, the magazine will begin live coverage of an expedition to climb Mount Everest in a new Field Test section, developed to bring readers insight and experiences from reporters, photographers, scientists and explorers in the field. Starting April 16 with the May edition and running through July, iPad subscribers will receive Twitter feeds, photos, video and blog posts from members of the Everest climbing team, including National Geographic magazine writer Mark Jenkins. The expedition, led by famed mountaineer Conrad Anker, is sponsored by National Geographic and The North Face, with support from Montana State University.
“Digital publishing allows us to reinvigorate and reimagine the magazine’s trademark reporting in timely ways. Real life doesn’t refresh on a monthly basis, and it is tremendously liberating to no longer be limited by the boundaries of a printed page or a monthly publication schedule,” said Declan Moore, National Geographic’s president of Publishing and Digital Media. “The iPad and other tablet devices allow us to play to our strengths as visual storytellers.”
Immediately before the awards were announced at the MPA digital publishing conference, Melissa Wiley, National Geographic’s deputy director of e-publishing, gave a brief preview of the magazine’s April edition featuring never-before-seen images of the Titanic as well as a stand-alone app — “National Geographic Adventure: Greatest Stories Ever Told” — developed from National Geographic magazine’s archives. The app goes on sale Thursday, March 22. The April iPad edition of National Geographic magazine was released on March 16.
To see a sample of the April edition of the National Geographic magazine for iPad, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pVgTDRy3Ww.
To see a sample of the “National Geographic Adventure: Greatest Stories Ever Told” app, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5rWVpUHzs.
Contacts:
Beth Foster
National Geographic
(202) 557-9815
befoster@ngs.org
Heather Wyatt
National Geographic
(212) 610-5535
ngtraveler@hwyattpr.com