The finalists for the 2008 Crunchies awards, brought to you by VentureBeat, GigaOm, Silicon Alley Insider and TechCrunch went up for vote earlier this evening. Vote here for your favorite startups, products and entrepreneurs.
Nearly 180,000 total nominations were made across the various categories.
Voting will continue until end of day on January 5, and the winners will be announced at the award ceremony and party on Friday, January 9 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. We released another 200 tickets for the event this evening as well, get them at Amiando. This ticket also gets you into the after party.
This year’s Crunchies would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Thanks to ceremony and after-party co-hosts: Microsoft, MySpace and Founders Fund; award benefactors: Charles River Ventures and Mayfield; streaming partner, Ustream; after-party game-room partner, Garage Games; ticketing partner, Amiando; photo host, PicApps; hosting partner, Media Temple; wine partner, Cannonball wines; and event patron, Institutional Venture Partners. Please contact heather@techcrunch.com or jlogo@earthlink.net if you’re interested to learn more about creative (and very reasonably priced) sponsorship opportunities.
For some reason, I just can’t view the site, http://crunchie....techcrunch.com, in my IE browser.
When i log on to the site, I get a black bacground page, but blank, and that’s it.
I get a page error, “done, but with errors on page”!
Is it just my browser?
Yep, I just tried Firefox and I was able to view the site, but not IE. I am using EI 7.
Sorry about that — we had a bug affecting IE users but it should be fixed now.
“For some reason”. I know what the reason is. You’re using IE.
hi…
for your next awards,.. it might be useful to have a category for app/company that has the best ROI (ie actual sales/revenues!!) for a given period, based on the required/raised startup capital…
this would be a category that i sure as hell would be interested in… and it would completly get rid of the crowd bias towards a site, as it would focus on sites with actual/live cashflow/profits!
peace
-sam
Google before it went public didn’t share how much it was making because high profit creates competition. Most of the companies mentioned are not public meaning they don’t have to share that type of info and I would guess most wouldn’t want to…most award shows are based on user trends..
most awards shows may be based on trends, or who has the most friends… most serious business (forbes/fortune/business week) try to take the groupthink aspect out of it.
(even the inc 500)
like i said, have another category for companies that want to really be taken seriously.
if i have a company that’s doing well.. i might not have the widespread buzz as others, but i might be kicking their ass in terms of revs…
peace…
by the way, none of your concerns stop the ernst and young, or the inc 500 lists from being generated. and 100s of companies try to get ranked on these lists every year. get your head out of the web, and into real business and see how it actually operates…
peace again…
So the Crunchies *only* focus on startups?
I thought these were general tech-site awards.
I will go vote for the 2008 Crunchies Finalists,haha…
CrunchLocator.com
dont be fooled by cheap immitators,
i know, i didnt make it. maybe next year.
and to all my suppporters, well wishers and drive-by hater crews i would like to say thank you. you have helped make me who i am today. the TC hater conditioning has made me more resilient and stronger than ever. 2009 will be a defining year in tech so lets get busy and shape it.
GenuineLocator.com – too legit to quit
Great job to promote startups TechCrunch ,kudos !
But i am seriously disappointed that Blog Catalog didn’t make it through to the finals, its one of the most deserving website for the awards and now i won’t vote further .
No ReadWriteWeb this year? Seems that Richard paid for his mistake
Vote for me!
my vote is there. Last one (Best Overall) was tough. Twitter and facebook should wrap up all awards.
That’s done !
As a participant we had a lot of people vote for us, I’d be interested in seeing the result of the popular vote. Is this possible or will you keep it secret.
That would be nice as I am quite sure there are those that had more votes than the “finalists” selected.
and the popular vote? official or secret?
done !!
It states clearly on the Crunchies site that the winners were selected based on popular vote plus a select jury panel from TC, VB, GigaOm and SAI. It’s pretty obvious if you know anything about some of the companies listed as finalists that they have either large communities or a highly viral, very sticky user base including Facebook, Amazon, Google, iPhone, eBuddy and meebo. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a number of them galvanized their users and orchestrated campaigns to call for nominations. A quick search on Google with “Crunchies 2008″ proves just how many companies actually did call on their own communities to vote.
Yes, the naming of the finalists took a bit longer than anticipated and I think TC and the event organizers ought to at least provide some sort of explanation (aside from it being Christmas last week). However, the criticism or suggestion of ethics warrants a strong rebuttal here: this is not just a TechCrunch award – it’s a culmination of 3 additional tech blogs who also play a part in the selection and decision-making process. TC, VentureBeat, GigaOm and Silicon Alley Insider are home to professional, well-respected journalists who have earned their stripes based on non-biased, ethical reporting. I personally know Matt Marshall, Om Malik and Henry Blodget and TC journalists (Mike, Erick, Jason, Mike Butcher and Robin Wauters), and not one of them would ever compromise or sacrifice editorial position for commercial gain – period. There is far too much to lose in doing so and for people to suggest otherwise shows just how little they really know about the press and about this stand-up group of editorial professionals.
There are winners and losers in every game or competition. There’s a lot to be said in losing gracefully, working hard and looking forward to a potential win next year than there is crying over spilled milk and trying to ruin things for everyone else – including a large number of the companies noted here who were very deservedly named as finalists.
Oh please. You can’t in one breath suggest folks be “graceful losers” and in the other breath defend TechCrunch not posting who actually lost the popular vote.
I just see this as being a mess for TechCrunch. They seem to be deleting/ignoring any cogent criticism, and that’s just making enemies.
@Joe Klaas: I suggest you re-read what I wrote as I certainly did not defend TC for not posting the final vote counts. I still very much believe the event organizers owe the public an explanation of why it took 2 weeks to publish the finalists. I don’t believe the comments here and everywhere else on the web – Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook etc. – would be anywhere near so bad if they’d simply let their public know what exactly the hold up really was. Too many people out on holiday? Too many fraudulent votes cast via any number of ways? Some combination of the two? The bottom line is that none of us know and that’s why everyone is so irritated. Customer Advocacy Rule #1: Communicate coherently and often with your customers and and make sure you let them know their concerns are being heard. I’m not sure why requests for an explanation are falling on deaf ears, but I am sure it’s added a lot of fuel to the fire.
The only thing I defended was the journalistic integrity of all of the participating journalists – as I’ve had personal experience and dealings with all of them.
my vote is there. Last one (Best Overall) was tough. Twitter and facebook should wrap up all awards.
Although I have trouble believing any Chinese guy named Gorge, your plea to help poor children just really convinced me that you’re a great businessman and philanthropist.
I’m super interested in your handiwork. Please email me at gorgeisanidiot@yahoo.com and we can set up time to meet where I can bring you the luggage full of money I have for you.
what a shame award….waste of time.
Total effing whiner. You have 2 diggs without the prospect for (m)any more. This is a ‘proprietary’ award show that owes you nothing, nor it is mandated that you participate.
I fully agree with you, the way the Crunchies have been run this year just smell of something going on, most likely Mike or other TechCrunch staff choosing the nominees and winners themselves because there is no way for anyone else to know. It’s total bullshit. I can’t imagine being a sponsor of such an event…