My Votes In The Crunchies Awards Contest

Just as I did with the Open Web Awards, here are my thoughts on the Crunchies awards. Here’s the info on voting. I found voting on the Crunchies more difficult than the Open Web Awards. Not sure exactly but it’s not easy to compare a company who has been alive for years versus a brand new company. It’d be great to get some clarification on the term "start-up" — does this mean this year or a startup from anytime? Check out Robert Scoble’s picks as well.

Just a note on voting for this contest and any other awards – consider a one vote per IP address limit. I understand all of the reasons why an awards show wants maximum votes but it reduces the chances that that smaller players will be able to be competitive.

As for the actual selected companies, there are a few that I could have guessed would be listed. On the flip side, for example, how’d Ribbit make it in considering they only launched on December 17?

Another brief note, I noticed on Twitter that Loic is disappointed that Seesmic wasn’t one of the finalists. Mike Arrington noted in a Seesmic video (about 1:20 in) that he removed any of his investments from grabbing a finalist slot. This is a good idea — perhaps he should list which of his investments made it but were removed – that might clear up some of the confusion.

Here are my selections and comments and CONGRATS! to all the finalists.

Best Technology Innovation

• Nominees: Earthmine, Like, Move Networks, Twine, Viewdle
• My Selection: None – don’t know enough about these companies

Best Bootstrapped Startup

• Nominees: FriendFeed, PoliticalBase, ProductWiki, Techmeme, UpNext
• My Selection: UpNext
• Comments: I only know FriendFeed, PoliticalBase from my research today. I did a tiny bit of consulting for ProductWiki and really like where they are headed but can’t vote for them based on the work. Techmeme and UpNext could both have received my vote, I went with UpNext because it’s NYC based. Like what both companies are doing though.

Best new gadget/device

• Nominees: iPhone, Kindle, Ooma, Pleo, Wii
• My Selection: iPhone
• Comments: I didn’t vote Wii as this category says 2007, wasn’t Wii 2006? Kindle been bashed 20 ways to Sunday, Ooma I’ve heard nothing about except on Techcrunch and Pleo I don’t know anything about. While it seems like the iPhone was left, it still was the strongest of the bunch. Did people actually vote for Ooma when they just shipped about 1 month ago?

Best business model

• Nominees: Glam Media, Imeem, Prosper, Weatherbill, Zazzle
• My Selection: None
• Comments: Glam Media = blog network, Imeem = no idea, Prosper = love social lending but the others in the category are just as strong, Weatherbill = innovative but not enough to get a vote, Zazzle = print stuff with your picture on it?

Best design

• Nominees: Etsy, Jackson Fish Market, Netvibes, SmugMug, Songza
• My Selection: SmugMug
• Comments: Not really sure what I am voting for here. The category says "best user-interface design" so I went with that. Jackson Fish Market is a web shop – should one of their products have been the entry?

Best enterprise start-up

• Nominees: 37Signals, Attributor, EditGrid, Ribbit, Zoho
• My Selection: None
• Comments: Would have voted for Zoho but can’t vote for a CN advertiser. Ribbit – how’d they get in, they launched on December 17? 37Signals isn’t really a start-up anymore. The others I don’t know enough to comment on.

Best consumer start-up

• Nominees: 1800-FREE-411, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Meebo, Zillow
• My Selection: Meebo
• Comments: Meebo has been going from strength to strength and deserves the vote. Zillow came in a very close second. LinkedIn isn’t a startup, 23andMe is pretty revolutionary, 1800-FREE-411 was big at year’s begin but not as much now.

Best mobile start-up

• Nominees: AdMob, Fring, Loopt, Shozu, Twitter
• My Selection: None
• Comments: I don’t know enough about these companies outside of Twitter (which I don’t use on the Mobile) to vote.

Best international start-up

• Nominees: Atlassian, Gizmoz, MusicShake, Netvibes, Openads
• My Selection: MusicShake
• Comments: MusicShake kicked ass at the TC40 and should have won and they get my vote. Netvibes is a great service but isn’t a startup, Openads I’ve heard is buggy, Gizmoz is fun but not as fun as MusicShake.

Best user-generated content site

• Nominees: Digg, Facebook, Geni, Instructables, Yelp
• My Selection: Yelp
• Comments: Digg and Geni aren’t UGC, not voting for Facebook, and Instructables is great but I use Yelp it seems daily.

Best video site

• Nominees: Aniboom, Hulu, Joost, Justin.tv, Tokbox
• My Selection: Hulu
• Comments: Hulu is a game changer, Aniboom would have been my next choice. Justin.tv LOLZ, Tokbox is ok, in my early trials I found it buggy.

Best clean start-up

• Nominees: A123Systems, Ausra, Gridpoint, NanoSolar, Tesla Motors
• My Selection: None
• Comments: I don’t know enough about these companies to vote.

Best use of viral marketing

• Nominees: Flixster, iLike, iminlikewithyou, RockYou, StumbleUpon
• My Selection: StumbleUpon
• Comments: StumbleUpon is awesome. The others are good as well but StumbleUpon sits above them.

Best time sink site

• Nominees: College Humor, Duels, Kdice, Kongregate, Pandora
• My Selection: Kongregate
• Comments: All good time wasters – interesting that iminlikewithyou didn’t make the cut here

Most likely to make the world a better place

• Nominees: Causes, DonorsChoose, ZeroFootprint, Kiva, One Laptop Per Child
• My Selection: Kiva
• Comments: I am going with the online vote here. Met ZeroFootprint when they sponsored TC40 and it seemed interesting, but not as strong online as Kiva. One Laptop Per Child will probably win in 2008.

Most likely to succeed

• Nominees: Kayak, Mint, Slide, Wordpress, Zivity
• My Selection: Kayak
• Comments: Kayak is a strong player here and out of this group has the most chance to succeed. Wordpress is too old to consider in this category, Zivity is a closed beta, you already know my thoughts on Mint.

Best start-up founder

• Nominees: Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Max Levchin (Slide), Kevin Rose (Digg), Evan Williams (Twitter), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
• My Selection: none
• Comments: None of these are startups in 2007. If it’s of all time, then Mark or Reid would be my vote.

Best start-up CEO

• Nominees: Gina Bianchini (Ning), Dick Costolo (Feedburner), Toni Schneider (Wordpress), Rob Solomon (Sidestep), Lance Takoda (RockYou)
• My Selection: Ning/Gina Bianchini
• Comments: Gina has built a strong company – one could argue that Mark is the marketer behind the growth but nevertheless it’s a company that comes up in conversation weekly. The others are not from 2007.

Best new start-up of 2007

• Nominees: Hulu, iMedix, Joost, Ribbit, Tumblr
• My Selection: Hulu
• Comments: Each of them are strong and my vote could have went to any of them. I like Tumblr a lot along with iMedix but my guess is, unfortunately, neither will win without the massive budgets of Joost and Hulu.

Best overall

• Nominees: Digg, Facebook, GrandCentral, Twitter, Zillow
• My Selection: GrandCentral
• Comments: GrandCentral is a huge game changer. Twiiter I could take or leave, Digg and Facebook are both massive and offer huge benefits but GrandCentral hits the pocketbook for most people so that’s why they get the nod. Zillow will get the win in 2008.

There’s my selections, who are your picks for the Crunchies Award Winners?