A great evening was had by all tonight as some of the leading startups gathered for the first annual Crunchies, a joint production between Read/Write Web, VentureBeat, GigaOm and TechCrunch.
The ceremony went (mostly) smoothly with a couple of surprises amongst the results. For a full list of nominees, visit the Crunchies 2007 portal here.
Best Overall: Facebook
Facebook revolutionized the idea of what social networking could be.
Best technology innovation / achievement: Earthmine
Earthmine picks up where Google Earth leaves off, bringing deep semantic data to 3D panoramas of the real world. Earthmine’s system can keep track of the objects found in the real world and attribute information to each of them, such as latitude, longitude, elevation, and other attributes.
Best Clean Tech Startup: Tesla Motors
Tesla’s green sports car has captured the imagination of a public who had come to expect electric cars to be dull are boring. Due to be released this year, the company has pre-orders from some of the biggest names in Entertainment and Technology.
Best video startup: Hulu
Hulu put television online. Their broadcasting system was modeled on the success of social video sites and drawn the praise of its previous critics.
Best user-generated content site: Digg
Digg’s simple voting system defined the emerging social media revolution. Getting “dugg” quickly became a badge of honor and established a coveted place in the geek lexicon.
Best mobile start-up: Twitter
Twitter, the new addictive microblogging platform. It wasn’t until after the South by Southwest conference that people realized the value of the incredibly simple microblogging platform.
Best International startup: Netvibes
Based in London, Tariq Karim and Freddy Mini’s Netvibes has made waves in the U.S. as a top personalized web portal.
Best consumer startup: Meebo
Meebo made instant messaging ubiquitous by bringing it online. They then developed it into a platform where anyone could add chat to their applications.
Best enterprise startup: Zoho
Zoho’s comprehensive online suite of 14 business applications ranging from document editing to CRM continues to lead the way in the move away from desktop computing to working in the cloud.
Best design: SmugMug
SmugMug is professional photo site. SmugMug’s attention to detail and design can command as much as $150 per year from their users.
Best new gadget/ device: Apple iPhone. See the Apple acceptance speech here.
Best business model: Zazzle
Looking for a Star Wars hat or memorable mug? Zazzle is an on-demand factory of consumer goods for top brands. It also lets consumers become producers by uploading their own images onto that T-shirt, mug, or mousepad. . Consumers can also receive a commission on products that they sell and design themselves
Best bootstrapped startup: Techmeme.
Founded and developed solely by Gabe Rivera, Techmeme serves as the front page of the tech blogosphere. The site’s advanced algorithms identify the day’s top stories by making sense of conversations across the web’s best blogs.
Best Startup Founder: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Does this really need any explanation? At 23 Mark has built one of the world’s leading online destinations that has recently been valued at $15 billion. A remarkable achievement for anyone, let alone someone at the still relatively young 23. A well deserved award.
Best Startup CEO: Toni Schneider (Automattic)
Schnieder has lead the company from its roots as a open source alternative to Movable Type into a multi-million dollar enterprise that saves the world from blog spam and offers a free hosted blogging solution that competes with Google’s Blogger.
Best new startup: iMedix
iMedix combines search and social networking to change the way people find health information online. Users are encouraged to help each other by sharing health experiences and links from around the web.
Most likely to succeed: Automattic (WordPress)
The open source blogging platform that powers the long tale and turned into a multi-million dollar spam fighting and hosted blogging service.
Best use of viral marketing: StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon’s service lets users bookmark and discover new sites they love. With only a $1.5 million investment in 2005, StumbleUpon gew to over 4 million Stumblers and was bought by eBay in 2007 for $75 million
Best time sink site: Kongregate
CEO Jim Greer describes Kongregate as XBox live for casual games. This site hosts some of the webs most addictive casual games. Remember Desktop Tower Defense? Moreover, the games are not only played by users, but also created by them in exchange for a share of advertising revenue and other rewards.
Most likely to make the world a better place: DonorsChoose
DonorsChoose.org is dedicated to connecting classrooms in need with individuals who want to help.
Hi – I just watched the awards on the live stream. Good try … but maybe next time try actually being a bit more organised. It was very painful to watch.
All winners seem reasonable except Zoho – who cares.
Eartmine demo of their product is really nice.
color commentary of the entire event:
http://www.cent...ards-live-notes
Glad to see the Tesla Motors award, I’m a big fan of their work, hope the event went well.
I am missing something. Whats unique about Facebook. Its the flavor or the month, that’s it.
All of them are deserving in my opinion.
http://howtogiv...d.wordpress.com
I think the call on Twitter for best mobile start-up was a silly call… how much revenue are they making? Secondly, oh that’s right in the U.S revenue doesn’t matter if you’re start-up!
i wwatched it from online, it was very good. and also i think the best part is Richter Scales’ show
Mobile startup – Twitter. Really?? TC are big fans of twitter and thats the only place I read about them.
facebook rocks…..
john
diamondrings411.com
My only beef with the awards is that most of the so-called “startups” aren’t really startups. Some are over a couple years old…
I was expecting something more fresh and less predictable, sorry
.
I will give the crunchies the benefit of the doubt…there is always next year.
@James
I agree – I was expecting something a little more interesting – I thought that awards to companies like FaceBook reeked of the essence of pandering to the big guys. Add that to the fact that they are not really a start-up (how many start-ups do you know of who have (a) been around for a few years, and (b) have raised over $300 million?) Don’t get me wrong – I’m not one of those “I hate FaceBook” people – but I was hoping for a bit more enlightenment from the first Crunchies.
The orgainisers of the awards night could learn a thing or two about hosting an event like this – or maybe next time hire an event management company. With a little planning the event could have been a lot better (said the guy who sat at home and watched it live online).
I guess there is always next year.
@James
I agree – I was expecting something a little more interesting – I thought that awards to companies like FaceBook reeked of the essence of pandering to the big guys. Add that to the fact that they are not really a start-up (how many start-ups do you know of who have (a) been around for a few years, and (b) have raised over $300 million?) Don’t get me wrong – I’m not one of those “I hate FaceBook” people – but I was hoping for a bit more enlightenment from the first Crunchies.
The organizer’s of the awards night could learn a thing or two about hosting an event like this – or maybe next time hire an event management company. With a little planning the event could have been a lot better (said the guy who sat at home and watched it live online).
I guess there is always next year.
Every single company listed above is made with a stroke of genius. Well deserved, indeed!
Michael,
Next time u should award start ups who used very little cash and their owners had to be super creative and not award companies with few hundrend million backing, they do not have to be so smart how to use this much money
How can Hulu win? It is in private beta.
“Hulu put television online.” – yeah, maybe in 2009
James
fair call to a point, but the nomination and voting was done by the readers of TC and the other 3 blogs, I’m sure I could find myself arguing with a couple of results myself but who am I to argue with the voice of others
Carlos
good idea. There was a “new” startup category though, but it would be nice to see more encouragement for newer, smaller startups
it’s long tail, not long tale in this case. no need to publish, just fix the post
twitter is just micro-blogging … only to increase self importance.
I always get a little chuckle out of the Hulu name. It reads as ”crazy” in finnish.
Hey Duncan,
What are you doing blogging when you should be at the party getting seriously drunk?
WTF
We won this award because we have OUR fox news media x employee running TC now, it’s so obvious… dude….
The real award for best video site should go to veoh, or stage6.
They are the real winners.
come on….
Yawn…
chrisw (#23)
I had to bring a pile of awards up so I never had a drink while I was up there. Trust me when I say that it would have been a lot easier if I’d had that opportunity
Hulu (24/25)
the votes went through some pretty severe fraud filters…and yes, some categories had some serious attempts at fraud. I won’t say with 100% certainty, but we’re fairly confident that the winners were fair and square voting wise.
Nice to see that Digg, Stumble upon, Facebook, Zoho, Techmeme, Smugmug…rockes…
Few disappointments… Yelp, Imeem, 37Signal, LinkedIn ;(
All seems deserve for the award, however I’ve not find flickr listed there?
Techcrunch has some “special” arrangement with Zoho. Zoho is just eye-candy without any serious functionality.
Has anyone created an important document/spreadsheet using Zoho?
Oh yes, I remember…Zoho is one the Techcrunch sponsors.
Zuckerberg?
Tesla??
Ohmigod…
First of all, I think we should thank TC and those involved fr coming up with this, great idea. It was their first event, and obviously things will run more smoothly next time. I think you had to many “start-ups” on there who really don’t qualify (ie FaceBook, Zoho). Better selection next time please. But on the whole a good job.
A big round of applause… Congratulations!
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
Looking at the winners, looks like a popularity award show.
Are you kidding me. … Mark Zuckerberg may be the biggest Douche Bag i have ever seen in my entire life…. if the credentials for best startup founder is purely based on the success.. ok… i can live with that, but because he may be the lamest, smuggest and robotic person i have ever seen: there is no way he can win. I have never met one person who actually likes him!!!!!
Wow this is the most boring/predictable list of winners ever. All of these companies have been out of a long time and seems to be that TC is only about what’s “hot” right now as apposed to what’s next. Oh well…TechCrucnch gets worse and worse the more I read it.
What is new or better about Zazzle vs CafePress which has been around awhile?
*Yawn*
You give out awards? To web sites?! BRILLIANT.
finally, a story about facebook.. i was hoping someone would take notice of the second most important social network.
€27
“the votes went through some pretty severe fraud filters…and yes, some categories had some serious attempts at fraud. I won’t say with 100% certainty, but we’re fairly confident that the winners were fair and square voting wise.”
yea I’m well sure it was ” fair and square ” btw, what lodge do you belong? or “how old is your mother”….
Did you post that new ritual on youporn yet?
Masons rule the day here folks , move along nothing out of the ordinary.
Oh and don’t patronize me, hulu was not voted for by the masses. they (masses) are all using veoh and stage6 – brother.
One Laptop per child adds more value to the future than all other winners, together.
We’re not the future. Those companies are not the future. All the childrens around the world, in any level, are the future of this world.
Wow, i’m feeling like Obama!
I wonder, when the Tesla Roadster will be sold to the public
goes like hell, the acceleration is much better then other cars with gasoline engines
For someone who has been around a very long time, I see the value of this, for MA and the good old boy network. Scratching each other’s back and lining each other pockets with cross board members is nothing new. These awards were more about the ‘ boys ‘ keeping and expanding their clout and NOT about the companies. FB gets a hell of a lot of press on TC; and, many of the others as well. This is how it all works. Jut being part of this in crowd is a huge benefit. If not now, then down the road. They’re very careful not to burn bridges. Funny production but in the real scheme of business, useless.
smugmug for best design? are you kidding me?
So a company wins because the TC readers use it because TC writes about it again and again. It’s a shame these awards (twitter) have no relation to what the non-techie community at large is actually using on the web.
@28: I agree, Yelp and LinkedIn at least deserved these more, but because they aren’t as “techie” as twitter, and far less annoying, they get looked over.
positive: great job pulling together such a big show and project. impressive work Arrington and team.
negative: i have to re-iterate khang tran’s (#44) statement, how does smugmug take the award for best design? that makes no sense at all. they should win the award for “non VC startup” not for best design.
but again, props to the whole team for creating an awards show around the web. not an easy feat.
Given Automattic as its subject, “powers the long tale” has a clever ring to it. Intentional or otherwise, I request you leave as-is.
The only thing on your list I use or care about is smug mug… IT is.
@43 khang tran
Have you actually used SmugMug or even visited their web site? Design isn’t just about a nice logo and flashy graphics – it’s actually more about usability and meeting the users expectations. If you take the time to poke around their web ste you’ll certainly see what I mean. SmugMug were very deserving of the award for Best Design. Take another look.
Can you guys define the term “startup” in reference to these awards?
Is it a within a certain funding boundary?
Does it depend on the amount of time the company has been around?
Does it have anything to do with the marketshare said company has gained since inception (or vs their competitors/established players)?
It just kind of seems that these awards were given to Internet related companies regardless of the items I mentioned above.
Echoing #34/Rob, the selection of Zuck as “Best Startup Founder” is not only strange, but just plain wrong.
What constitutes “best”?
Does he have incredible business sense, creating a revolutionary industry model like Bill Gates did with DOS/Windows?
Does he inspire rabid passion, like Steve Jobs does?
Did he reinvigorate the notion of a company standing for a higher principle, as Larry and Sergey did with Don’t Be Evil?
No’s all the way down. Instead, we have a company that, YES, does have an extremely strong and fast-growing userbase, but based only on the basic premise of the service, and not due to deft maneuvers by the Founder. In fact, Facebook is growing rapidly DESPITE the actions of MarkZ, including Beacon and his arrogant style.
His greatest assets are 1) he holds the title of CEO, and 2) he’s young. The latter, especially, seems to blind everyone from reason.