The Crunchies: Finalists Are Up, Vote For the Winners

The nomination process for the Crunchies, a joint effort between us, Read/Write Web, VentureBeat and GigaOm, is now complete.

82,000 nominations were made for thousands of individual startups. The top startups in each of twenty categories have made it to the final vote. Starting now, you can vote for the startups you think are most worthy in each of twenty categories – from “best technology achievement” to “best overall startup.”

Each category has five finalists to choose from. A few startups made it to the finals of multiple categories, but there are still nearly 100 to choose from for the various awards. Voting goes until January 10. The Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, January 18 at the 1,000 seat Herbst Theater across the street from City Hall in San Francisco, followed by one hell of a party.

Thanks to sponsors Adobe, Charles River Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Microsoft, OurStage and Sun for assisting us with the event – we could not do it without them. Thanks as well to WeBreakStuff for building the site (they also did our Tech President site), and Media Temple for hosting.Contact us if you’re interested to sponsor an award or other part of the evening festivities. It’s sure to be a great evening.

Go vote now! If you are a finalist, you can also grab a badge to let your users know and vote for you to win.

And finally – tickets to the event will be going on sale in the next week or so. Stay tuned.