Crunchies Awards Show – LIVE Color Commentary!

Tonight is the Crunchies awards show in San Francisco. You can keep refreshing this page to see the winners in real-time, we will bring them to you immediately as they are announced. The event begins at 7pm Pacific Time. Rachel Sterne (no relation) is doing some interviews – she’s from Ground Report. You will get me real color commentary here people! :) Newest is on top:

10:30 (1:30AM eastern) – Ok, I am done. Goodnight all.  

10:24 – Ben Metcalfe says that there was a lot of negativity in the twitter about the event – though after they thought the cameras weren’t rolling Ben said, “see i told you i’d bring the controversy” LOL :) Ben rocks.

10:23 – Mike says they did some things right and some wrong – wants it to 1 hr next year – personally I disagree - I may write more when I am back awake tomorrow :)  Mike loves a recession except that people lose their jobs

10:19 – I am a bit disappointed that they only interviewed people “connected” – would have been nice to do it like they did the TC party where anyone could come talk to us – we hear enough shilling day in and day out 

10:10 – Personally I would love for Sarah to stop doing  her pop snap thing – it just doesn’t help the image, sorry.

10:09 – Zivity says she isn’t leaving private beta until 2009 but somehow was big enough to get a nom? asks the chat room  – she also said she’s looking to build a community that respects women and embraces “artistic qualities” – whatever that means.

9:53 – how did Tesla win considering they don’t even have a car made yet? – says the chatroom 

9:50 – apparently Netvibes has a new version coming out tuesday at 5am – it’s with “the press” – which clearly does not include CN :( 

9:49 – people in the chat room wondering how companies win awards in private beta

9:42 – iMedix – worth the flight from Israel to be here to win – they have been working 24/7 in the hotel – adhd most popular term on their site

9:40 – Seth from Meebo – he says fantastic 4 times – they are working on some kind of sync platform for developers to make it really great – and putting their stuff on island and def jam records

9:33 – MC Hammer comes over – shills the f out of dancejam – he believes they are creating something great around dance – shills his team – looks like he is wearing a 2 foot rabbit or bear around his neck – chat room going crazy for it – no one can figure out what that is – he belives dancejam is a “comfortable place” – he also says anything goes – hes a friend of mogulus – i guess thats why he gets a 10 minute interview!

9:30 – Sarah Lacy says she’s glad that Facebook won 2 of the biggest awards, she was surprised and shocked that WordPress won, surprised Slide didn’t win anything

9:28 – the show is over now – Mike ended it quickly and swiftly – that was shocking says the chat room

BEST OVERALL

Winner – Facebook

BEST NEW STARTUP

Winner – iMedix

BEST CEO AWARD

Winner – Toni Schneider – Auttomatic

BEST FOUNDER AWARD

Winner – Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

BEST TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

Winner – Earthmine

9:09 – Mike thanks the sponsors

9:05 – another video – this time something about words of wisdom – it seemed like shilling not words of wisdom

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

Winner – WordPress

8:59 – first time i’ve ever seen this – man reading notes off the treo and can’t remember any of it

BEST BUSINESS MODEL

Winner – Zazzle

8:57 – Disappointed that Richard posted all of the winners before they were announced :(

BEST INTERNATIONAL STARTUP

Winner – Netvibes

BEST MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE WORLD 

Winner – Donors Choose

8:39 – Dan Farber asks the hosts questions:

• Erick – he was surprised that they asked their audiences to come up with the initial nominees and then vote on the winners – they wanted to be like Digg – they found it wasn’t so easy – there was a lot of gaming – in the ends we put our heads together – so the people did NOT pick the winners apparently  (Rafe says via Twitter he thinks people did pick the winners but they picked the finalists)
• Om  – working too much is a killer app – he likes twitter
• Matt – he was surprised by all the action in advertising – wonders if advertising will work in the downturn
• Richard – he likes the number of international products that are part of the event
• Mike – we are seeing less and less exciting stuff – no intriguing business models coming out now – he looks forward to coming back to exciting

8:38 – based on my post and your feedback on what is a startup, is techmeme a startup still? service is great, but is it still considered a startup?

BEST BOOTSTRAPPED STARTUP

Winner –  TechMeme

8:35 – Mike says blogs shouldn’t raise funding

BEST TIME WASTE SITE

Winner – Kongregate

8:29 – another video of bootstrapping

BEST USER GENERATED CONTENT

Winner – video died - Digg won 

8:25 – Happy Birthday to scoble says Mike

BEST USE OF VIRAL MARKETING 

Winner – StumbleUpon

BEST CONSUMER INTERNET STARTUP 

Winner – Meebo

8:18 – another video this time about users and community – looks like most of the companies are from SF

8:15 – all winners get 30 seconds but fake steve jobs gets multiple minutes! funny for 30 seconds – the man curses 40x for cheap pops – lame

BEST GADGET

Winner – iphone

BEST ENTERPRISE STARTUP 

Winner – Zoho

8:05 – so far i’ve picked every winner – that’s not good

BEST CLEAN TECH STARTUP

Winner –  TESLA

8:05 – Richter Scales is done – camera person zooms like there is no tomorrow 

7:58 – Mike talks about the Richter Scales video – they are playing live

BEST VIDEO SITE AWARD

Winner –  Hulu

7:54 – sponsor commercial for adobe 

7:54 – is it best or most popular who wins?

BEST DESIGN

Winner – SmugMug

BEST MOBILE STARTUP AWARD

Winner -  Twitter

7:46 – first video – trends and innovation – some guy who we don’t know who says it’s the computer is the distruptive thing? some guy says how great cool whip is… i sure hope the other videos are better – this one is about as boring as watching hot air popcorn pop

7:44 - Mike explains that you have 30 seconds to get your thank yous in then we must move on 

7:42 – shows a video about how they made the award – 14″ tall, 2.5 lbs 

7:40 – Show is starting – Arrington is doing the welcome  - Om says hi, Richard says hi, RWW rocks, Matt Marshall from VentureBeat says hi as well, VC covers the intersection of money and tech

7:38 – Sarah Lacy interviewed – she shills everything she is working on – she said she is there cuz Arrington asked her to come – also is interested in the entrep of the year. Sarah says that her book will focus on people who don’t care about money when they do their startups 

7:34 – Geni is interviewed – founder says he has 30,000 people on his tree – am I up on there?

7:32 – Ingrid from Mogulus lets us know that many of the people are in the audience are the founders of innovation – like Kevin Rose – power to the people she says – very exciting to hear what they have to say

7:30 – the hosts have shilled for Herbst theater so many times already - must be in the contract :) 

7:29 - people in the chat room are now picking words for drinking game – i’ll take web 2.0 

7:25 – they interview Marissa from Google – she talks about how interesting it will be to watch how social affects search - Alex asks about maps companies and are they looking to acquire – but wait – isn’t UpNext the only map company?  Marissa says people are looking for the tiger who attacked the woman – and Marissa won’t share any product announcements for 2008 tonight

7:20 – Chris interviews Zoho – a CN sponsor – Raju explains what Zoho does – but you already know cuz we done covered them before and I knows you all have clicked on their ad! Interesting fact – zoho the name is a play off soho – they have 17 apps right now

7:16 – Rafe from Webware is there – shoutout to Rafe from NYC! If you aren’t reading Webware, shame on you! Rafe believes liveblogging is where it’s at – the tragedy he says is that there is no time to reflect

7:15 – clearly the camera person with Rachel is drunk – I feel like I am on a boat in the water – she’s interviewing the guy from Facebook Causes app – says nothing except he wants to win

7:14 – they sure do jump from camera to camera and cut everyone off lolcat

7:11 – Kevin Rose hops onto the camera and discusses the editors – he doesn’t actually discuss the editors – deflects to buries and diggs – he says its ALL BASED ON MATH and what the users are doing – so he said that there are NO editors

7:10 – Rachel is a real talent – she should have a daily show I think. Too bad they gave her the wobbly camera and the mic with no wrapper

7:06 – Chris Albrecht says he is glad that it’s being held in SF because that’s where everything is happening

7:03 – Chris Albrecht is talking about how excited he is about the video category – apparently people are going inside – so far this seems like a real class act

7:01 – they show the tesla roadster – well not really as it’s pitch black outside and you can’t see anything – can we get a light please?

6:55 – interview with Ribbit – they put some VOIP over SalesForce apparently – but they have no frogs on their web site

6:50PM – they interview Sarah Meyers – she apparently has an unlimited travel budget

6:47PM – Some of the GigaOm and Mogulus people are chit-chatting – pretty boring if you ask me. Mogulus is always so “sticky” which makes it hard to watch.