It was good to see Techmeme, the news aggregator, win an award Thursday evening for “Best Bootstrapped Startup.” Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera (below). The Crunchies 2012 awards went mostly to older startups, like SoundCloud, one of Europe’s better known startups, and already a recepient of a TechCrunch award three years ago in 2009.
Mike Butcher from Techcrunch Europe above left, prepares to give SoundCloud another award.
John Oliver, from the Daily News show provided some of the entertainment. He said he had no idea that AOL still existed (AOL owns Techcrunch and the awards), and that he considers anyone with an AOL email to likely be a serial killer from the ’90s.
There was an awkward scripted banter performed by Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder, and his former AOL boss Tim Armstrong as they avoided eye contact and awarded Mark Zuckerberg, (below) CEO of Facebook, with “Best CEO.”
Instagram founder Kevin Systrom won “Founder of the Year”, beating Elon Musk and his SpaceX and Tesla achievements. Pretty filters versus rocket science.
The award for “Biggest Social Impact” went to Reddit, a good choice.
Makerbot won “Best Hardware Startup.” There’s no need to learn how to tie a bowtie when you can just print a plastic one in a matter of hours…
The UK flew the flag, or rather draped it over a model to promote its entrepreneurial culture.
Davies Symphony Hall
Here’s more info and video from Techcrunch:
Best Technology Achievement
Mars Curiosity winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Google Glass runner-up
Baumgartner Jump, SpaceX docks with International Space Station, Tesla Supercharger Network finalists
Best Collaborative Consumption Service
Airbnb winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Uber runner-up
Get It Now/Postmates, Lyft, TaskRabbit finalists
Best E-Commerce Application
Fab winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Karma/Facebook Gifts runner-up
Hotel Tonight, Warby Parker, Zulily finalists
Best Mobile Application
Google Maps winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Evernote runner-up
Grindr, Instagram, Square finalists
Fastest Rising Startup
Snapchat winner onstage segment
Stripe runner-up
Exec, Lyft, Pinterest finalists
Best Content Discovery Application
Pinterest winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Flipboard runner-up
Instapaper, Prismatic, Tumblr finalists
Best Design
Paper by FiftyThree winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Square runner-up
Facebook Timeline, Medium, Svbtle finalists
Best Bootstrapped Startup
Techmeme winner onstage segment | backstage interview
FreshBooks runner-up
Instapaper, Nimbus, Upverter finalists
Sexiest Enterprise Startup
Box winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Cloudera runner-up
Asana, Plexxi, Zendesk finalists
Best International Startup
SoundCloud winner onstage segment
Spotify runner-up
Hailo, Rovio, Xiaomi finalists
Best Education Startup
Codecademy winner onstage segment
Coursera runner-up
Edmodo, Khan Academy, Udacity finalists
Best Hardware Startup
Makerbot winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Raspberry Pi runner-up
Lit Motors, Lockitron, Nest finalists
Best Time Sink
Buzzfeed winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Letterpress runner-up
Angry Birds Star Wars, Pinterest, WhatsApp finalists
Biggest Social Impact
Reddit winner onstage segment
Indiegogo runner-up
Donors Choose, Kickstarter, Kiva finalists
Angel of the Year
Chris Dixon winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Paul Graham runner-up
Michael Arrington, David Lee, Chris Sacca finalists
VC of the Year
Peter Thiel winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Jim Goetz runner-up
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Matt Cohler, Michael Moritz finalists
Founder of the Year
Kevin Systrom (Instagram) winner onstage segment
Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla) runner-up
Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb), Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage (Eventbrite), Nir Zuk (Palo Alto Networks) finalists
CEO of the Year
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) winner onstage segment
Larry Page (Google) runner-up
Dick Costolo (Twitter), Phil Libin (Evernote), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!) finalists
Best New Startup of 2012
Coursera winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Lyft runner-up
Crowdtilt, Snapchat, Waze finalists
Best Overall Startup of 2012
Github winner onstage segment | backstage interview
Palantir runner-up
Fab, Instagram, Square
Tom Foremski is the Editor and Founder of the popular and top-ranked news site Silicon Valley Watcher, reporting on business and culture of innovation. He is a former journalist at the Financial Times and in 2004, became the first journalist from a leading newspaper to resign and become a full-time journalist blogger.
Tom has been reporting on Silicon Valley and the US tech industry since 1984 and has been named as one of the top 50 (#28) most influential bloggers in Silicon Valley. His current focus is on the convergence of media and technology — the making of a new era for Silicon Valley. He also writes a column at ZDNET.
