Storify wins Knight-Batten Award for innovation

Social media tool Storify is credited as 'becoming a verb' by award director

The Guardian Data Store has received an honorable mention for its use of Google spreadsheets and Google Fusion Tables.

NPR's Andy Carvin takes home £1,224 ($2,000) of funding after "pioneering a new form of journalism" for his use of social media in reporting the Arab Spring.

Winner of the $10,000 main prize, Storify, a free journalism tool which allows users drag and drop tweets, Flickr photos, YouTube videos and Facebook posts to creatively curate and present an embeddable story, was only fully opened to the public in April 2011. It was launched by Burt Herman last year.

"Scarcely a year into its existence, Storify has become so essential the word Storify has become a verb," said Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab, which administers the awards said in a release. Several of this year’s applicants built their entries around the tool.

Four of the 123 entries scooped Special Distinction Awards, which include cash prizes. They are:

West Africa Democracy Radio: This Dakar-based network of radio stations, serving 13 countries in West Africa, designed a publishing system that works for those without resources. Partnering with the Czech journalism nonprofit Sourcefabric, WADR integrated several open-source tools, including the Newscoop CMS, Airtime radio software and the SoundCloud audio-distribution platform to publish reports in French and English online, on air and on social media sites.

NPR's Andy Carvin and his Twitter community: Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, NPR's Andy Carvin has pioneered a new form of journalism, using his online followers to piece together and validate real-time reports that documented historic events in the Middle East. By using his Twitter account as a newsgathering operation, he has demonstrated how reporting can be done remotely and created a highly engaged community of more than 50,000 Twitter followers.

Bloomberg Government: Meshing interactive data, analytics, deep-dive white papers, traditional reporting and a pay wall, BGov is building a new way to cover government with a subscription-only website that quantifies the impact of government action on business and that, it asserts, is "on track to be a profitable venture".

The Texas Tribune: The Tribune nonprofit news startup has made data fundamental to its journalism, giving users access to robust and contextualised data sets, transparently sourced and beautifully presented. The site’s interactive graphics, visualisations, document annotations, budget applications and searchable data sets are its most popular feature, drawing 63 per cent of its 13 million page views in the first four months of this year.

Cited as honorable mentions:

Biblion: The New York Public Library's iPad app, initially centering on the 1939-1940 World's Fair, allows users to enter virtual library stacks and go down beautiful rabbit holes filled with staggering depths of information.

NewHavenIndependent.org Community Engagement: In an ambitious School Reform Town Hall and an ongoing New Haven's Talking initiative, this six-year-old non-profit news site has become the fulcrum for partnerships that involve the community, local media, experts and public officials in discussing issues in interactive and compelling ways.

Guardian Data: The Guardian newspaper's innovative use of Google spreadsheets and Google Fusion Tables paved the way for sharing data through social media and crowdsourcing, including such high-profile stories as tracking Members' of Parliament expenses and WikiLeaks disclosures.

Bay Citizen Bike Tracker: This application plots thousands of Bay Area bike collisions on an interactive map that discloses individual accidents, key locations and road conditions.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).