independent.ie’s app received special recognition at a prestigious publishing industry event in Copenhagen. The highly popular app was awarded a Special Mention in the Best News Mobile Service category at the European Digital Media Awards.

The ceremony saw hundreds of entrants from publishers whittled down to Top 3 per category. The overall winner of the Best News Mobile Service was APPSfactory GmbH, Leipzig, Germany for their Tagesschau vertical video app. Independent.ie’s news app, which received over 1 billion screenviews in 2016, came second in the ceremony attended by leading European publishers.

An international panel of judges handed out a total of nine awards, following hundreds of entrants to the competition. Winners on the night included the Guardian News & Media, Axel Springer SE, Dagbladet, Aller Media AS.

The ceremony was conducted by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, to “recognise publishers who have adopted digital media and mobile strategies as part of their total product offering to meet the major changes in how people consume news and information today.”

Accepting the special mention in recognition of outstanding digital media projects, INM’s head of product, Steve Dempsey said: “The success of the app is down to INM’s editorial excellence, a data-led understanding of our users, and a design led approach to UX & UI.
“It’s a team effort and it’s great for our team of journalists, designers and developers to be recognised and honoured amongst international peers in the news industry.”

Group Digital Editor Fionnuala O’Leary said: “Our Independent.ie app audience is the most engaged segment we have across all our digital products.
“It’s fantastic to see this level of user interaction has been recognised at such a high level in digital publishing.”