The 2008 Crunchies is an annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. here’s the list of winners and the finalists.

Best Application Or Service

Google Reader (winner)

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. It was released by Google on October 7, 2005 through Google Labs. Reader graduated from beta status on September 17, 2007.

MySpace Music (runner-up)

MySpace Music section differ from normal profiles in allowing artists to upload up to six MP3 songs. The uploader must have rights to use the songs (e.g. their own work, permission granted, etc). Unsigned musicians can use MySpace to post and sell music using SNOCAP, which has proven popular among MySpace users.

Get Satisfaction

Get Satisfaction is a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships. Thousands of companies use this neutral space to support customers, exchange ideas, and get feedback about their products and services…

Minted

Minted is an online stationery store. They crowd-source designs from the professional design community to create high end templates for invitations, holiday cards, and all kinds of stationery.

Meebo

Meebo is a new communications and media company that’s re-writing the way people have conversations and communicate on the Web. We provide instant messaging and group chat to over 40 million people at meebo.com and via partner sites across the Web. At meebo.com, millions of people every month keep in touch with friends on an any IM network (AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk and Gmail, MySpace IM, Facebook Chat, and more!) and chat with people in Meebo Rooms.

Yelp

Yelp combines local reviews and social networking functionality to create a local online community. Adding social web functionality to user reviews creates a de-facto reputation system, whereby site visitors can see which contributing users are the most popular, respected, and prolific, how long each has been a member…

Best Technology Innovation/Achievement

Windows Live Mesh (winner)

Live Mesh is a data synchronization system from Microsoft that allows files and folders to be shared and synchronized across multiple devices. Live Mesh consists of a software component that allows synchronization relationships to be created among different devices. Once a folder is set for synchronization, it will be available in all devices, and any changes made to the content of the folder will be reflected across all devices.

Facebook Connect (runner-up)

Facebook is a popular, free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website’s name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other

Google Friend Connect

Google Friend Connect is an Open Social application offered by Google that started in May 2008. Google Friend Connect main focus is to simplify the connection between social and non-social websites and standardize the handling and presentation of social applications and content. It uses a blend of open standards, such as OpenID for signin, oAuth to control data, and Open Social for applications.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a free web browser developed by Google that has about 1% share of browser market. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or “chrome”, of web browsers. Chromium is the open source project behind Google Chrome, and is released under the BSD license. It implements the same feature set, but has a slightly different logo.

Swype

Swype creates text input technology for screens. The patented interface enables users to create words with one continuous finger motion across an on-screen keyboard. This approach provides a faster and easier way to write. Swype delivers single-tap, multi-tap, predictive and “swype” motions for both stylus and finger based input. In addition, the application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more.

Yahoo BOSS

Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is a Yahoo! Developer Network initiative to provide an open search web services platform.  The main goal and idea of BOSS is to give users, in this case developer’s free access to the Yahoo! Search index. The results can be supplied into the developer’s website or program so that they can manipulate the resources according to their product’s requirements…

Best Design

Cooliris (winner)

Cooliris, formerly known as PicLens, is a web browser plugin that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images. The plugin is available for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. At present, the software is compatible with Google Image Search, Yahoo! Image Search, Ask.com Images, Live Search Images, AOL Image Search, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Fotki, FotoTime, deviantART, SmugMug, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Friendster, YouTube (for videos), Gallery, and any web site that implements mediaRSS <link> tags in their HTML pages. The software places a small icon in the corner of an image thumbnail when the mouse moves over it, which launches into a full-screen photo viewer when clicked.

Animoto (runner-up)

Animoto is a web application that, with the click of a button, produces videos using images and music that a user selects. Using their patent-pending Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor & director, the resulting video has the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video.

Friendfeed

FriendFeed is a feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed. Users can use this stream of information to create customized feeds to share (and comment) with friends.

Infectious

Infectious creates and sells self expression stickers for your car. The stickers, which are made to be durable yet removable, are made out of the same materials as ad wraps used on cars and buses. The company recommends 18-24 months of usage per sticker, but says they will likely last a lot longer.

Lala

Lala is a hub for online music discovery and purchasing. Users can listen for free music, adding tracks to their playlist as they surf. members who download a plugin can turn Lala into an online music locker that syncs their desktop music libraries to their Lala account. Long uploads aren’t necessary. If Lala already has the song in their library, they simply unlock the file to you online.

Sliderocket

SlideRocket is a rich internet application (RIA) that provides for every part of the presentation life cycle. It integrates authoring, asset management, delivery and analytics tools in a single hosted environment that allows you to quickly create great looking presentations, store, tag and search your assets, collaborate with your colleagues, securely share your slides in person or remotely and measure the results.

Best Bootstrapped Startup

GitHub (winner)

GitHub is a project hosting service for projects using the Git revision control system. It is written in Ruby on Rails, being developed by Logical Awesome (Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett, and Tom Preston-Werner). GitHub operates a pastebin-style site at gist.github.com

12seconds.tv (runner-up)

12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It’s a super easy way to share what you’re doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you’re doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time.

• BackType
• Socialcast
• StatSheet

Most Likely To Make The World A Better Place

GoodGuide (winner)

GoodGuide™ strives to provide the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. GoodGuide’s mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent “For-Benefit” company. We are committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.

• Kiva (runner-up)
• Akoha
• Causes
• CO2Stats
• Better Place

Best Enterprise Startup

Amazon Web Services (winner)

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) are a collection of remote computing services (also called web services) offered over the Internet by Amazon.com. Launched in July 2002, Amazon Web Services provide online services for other web sites or client-side applications. Most of these services are not exposed directly to end users, but instead offer functionality that other developers can use. In June 2007, Amazon claimed that more than 330,000 developers had signed up to use Amazon Web Services.

Google App Engine (runner-up)

Google App Engine is a platform for building and hosting web applications on Google Web Servers. It was first released as a beta version in April 2008. During its preview release, only free accounts are offered. According to Google, a free account can use up to 500 MB of persistent storage and enough CPU and bandwidth for about 5 million page views a month. Google has also indicated its intention to eventually provide additional resources for a price. During the preview stage, Google App Engine tries to accommodate sudden surges in traffic, but errors will occur if the quota continues to be exceeded.

• Force.com
• Yammer
• Zoho

Best International Startup

eBuddy (winner)

eBuddy is a web & mobile messenger which supports various instant messaging services including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Facebook, and MySpace IM. eBuddy is a web browser-based instant messaging service that originally started as e-Messenger in 2003. It combines MSN, AOL, Google Talk, ICQ, Facebook and MySpace IM into a single web based interface. It is also available via mobile phones, independent of carrier or device via WAP or mobile internet browser.

• Wuala (runner-up)
• Fotonauts
• OpenX
• Vente-privee

Best Clean Tech Startup

• Project Frog (winner)
• Better Place (runner-up)
• Boston Power
• ElectraDrive
• Laurus Energy

Best New Gadget/Device

• iPhone 3G (winner)
• Android G1 (runner-up)
• Ausus EEE 1000 Series
• Flip MinoHD
• SlingCatcher

Best Time Sink Site/Application

• Tap Tap Range (winner)
• Texas Hold Em (runner-up)
• Mob Wars
• iBowl
• Zivity

Best Mobile Startup

Evernote (winner)

Evernote is a software application that allows users to capture information of various types, including text notes, mobile phone snapshots, printed and handwritten text within images, web clips, and digital ink. All data added to Evernote are run through a series of recognizers that make any text within the various note formats searchable. The application uses a continuous “roll of paper” metaphor for its user interface. Additionally, users may create folders, categories and notebooks.

• ChaCha (runner-up)
• Posterous
• Qik Skyfire
• Truphone

Best Mobile Application

imeem mobile (winner)

imeem for Android helps people easily discover music that matches their tastes. The application enables users to create custom Internet radio stations by searching for specific artists, discover new music through personalized recommendations and listen to the most popular artists in the imeem community. .

Google Mobile Application (runner-up)

Google’s mobile application is available for the Android, iPhone, Blackberry, and numerous other mobile phone solutions. The application supports websearch, directions, maps, business listings, GMail, YouTube, and phone contact search. Google Mobile also supports an SMS search system..

• Pandora Radio
• rolando
• ShopSavvy
• Ocarina

Best Startup Founder

• Linda Avery and Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)
• Michael Birch and Xochi Birch (Bebo)
• Robert Kalin (Etsy)
• Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone (Twitter ) (winner)
• Paul Buchheit, Jim Norris, Sanjeev Singh, Bret Taylor (FriendFeed ) (runner-up)

Best Startup CEO

• Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) (winner)
• Jason Kilar (Hulu) (runner-up)
• Tony Hsieh (Zappos)
• Elon Musk (SpaceX)
• Andy Rubin (Android)

Best New Startup Of 2008

FriendFeed (winner)

FriendFeed is a feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed. Users can use this stream of information to create customized feeds to share (and comment) with friends.

Dropbox (runner-up)

Dropbox is a storage application and service operated by Evenflow, Inc. The service enables users to store and sync files online and between computers. Dropbox has a cross-platform client (Windows, Mac and Linux) that enables users to drop any file into a Dropbox folder that is then synced to the web and the users’ other computers with the Dropbox client.

• GoodGuide
• Tapulous
• Topsin Media
• Yammer

Best Overall Startup In 2008

Facebook (winner)

Facebook is a popular, free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website’s name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other.

Twitter (runner-up)

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, or email, or through an application such as …

Amazon Web Services

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) are a collection of remote computing services (also called web services) offered over the Internet by Amazon.com. Launched in July 2002, Amazon Web Services provide online services for other web sites or client-side applications. Most of these services are not exposed directly to end users, but instead offer functionality that other developers can use. In June 2007, Amazon claimed that more than 330,000 developers had signed up to use Amazon Web Services.

Android

The Android platform is a software stack for mobile devices including an operating system, middleware and key applications. Developers can create applications for the platform using the Android SDK. Applications are written using the Java programming language and run on Dalvik, a custom virtual machine designed for embedded use, which runs on top of a Linux kernel.

• hulu

The Crunchies 2008

Tags: amazon, amazon web, ebuddy, facebook, FriendFeed, Google Chrome, iphone, meebo, microsoft, MySpace, Opera, pandora, social networking, software, Twitter, web service, Web-based, Windows

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