The way Ritu Kapur tells it, it's not the huge amount she and husband Raghav Bahl knew about video that drove the success of their TheQuint.com website, but what they "unlearned".

The couple had years of experience in broadcast TV, she as programming head at the History Channel and a CNN features editor, and her - these days more reticent - partner as entrepreneur and owner of television channels including TV18 India until its sale to Reliance.

And at the end of the first day of WAN-Ifra's India conference, it was Kapur who fronted up with team members to collect the site's three gold awards in the first South Asian Digital Media competition... and to explain their success.

"Video for digital is completely different to broadcast," she says.

At the youth-orientated Quint, the motto is "go out and shoot", with innovations including selfie-stick-based interviews, where "formality goes out the window".

With a focus on being "mobile in every sense", the site's young team experimented with formats, discovering that 30 seconds could be too long, but viewers would watch long-form work of as much as 11 minutes, "as long as the content is compelling and unusual". And a short teaser helps.

The content is frequently confrontational, and subjects are encouraged to put themselves on air, shooting selfie interviews with their own phones. And for reporters, production of real-time video - complete with text and no time lost - "can be so empowering," she says.

Snapshat is "just one of the tools" but publisher Quintillion Media also uses professional software and its own technology. "You can have so much fun with it," Kapur says.

Quintillion's three gold awards - for best digital ad campaign, use of online video, and best reader engagement - were among nine categories presented in Kolkata tonight.

Other major winners were NDTV Convergence - which went home with a total of ten of the awards, jointly presented by WAN-Ifra and Google - and newspaper site manoramaonline.com.

Winners were:

Best News Website: gold- www.manoramaonline.com; silver- www.ndtv.com: bronze- www.onmanorama.com: bronze- www.indianexpress.com: bronze- www.amarujala.com.

Best New Product: gold- Gadgets 360, from Red Pixles Ventures: silver- News Beeps, from NDTV Convergence: bronze- Vixty app, from NDTV Convergence.

Best New Mobile Service: gold- News Republic App: silver- www.indianexpress.com: bronze- The Quint.

Best Digital Advertising Campaign: gold- The Quint - IAmShatterProof for Motorola; silver- NDTV Convergence - L'Oreal Paris Women of worth 2016.

Best Use of Online Video: gold- The Quint - The Wild West of Utter Pradesh; silver- NDTV Convergence - Shiksha Ki Ore Campaign; bronze- NDTV Convergence - L'Oreal Paris Women of worth 2016.

Best Entertainment & Lifestyle Mobile Service: silver- NDTV Convergence - Nirmal MyFit100Days.

Best Entertainment & Lifestyle Website Service: gold- NDTV Convergence - Nirmal MyFit100Days; silver- Times Internet - Happytrips.com.

Best Data Visualisation Project: bronze- NDTV Convergence - Dettol Banega Swachh India.

Best Reader Engagement: gold- The Quint ; silver- The Hindu - sportstarlive.com - Ask Ashwin Contest; bronze- TheHindu.com - Tamil Nadu Election Campaign 2016.

Pictured: TheQuint cofounder Ritu Kapur

Below: Digital Media Awards winners