The Crunchies. The Who'sWho on the Catwalk.

When TC announced it was having a competition for the 'best new startups', I immediately smelt a rotten egg. Well that egg just turned into a corpse that rightly belongs underground! I mean the stench of it.

I've seen it all before, so I'm not at all surprised, but I do feel for all the wannabe startups that entered, spammed their friends, family and their user base, begging them to vote, and just got bummed big time. Not only did they get whittled out but in their place is a hand picked selection that were probably on the roster long before the so-called nominations even started, and adding insult to injury the real startups were implied to have been fraudulently voting for themselves and had to be 'stripped out'. I bet they liked that remark MA!

There is not one unknown startup on the list of 'nominees' (I use the term very lightly), the finalists are simply a list of all the main boys currently prancing about on the catwalk, all with millions in backing and all Madonna's in the VIP room.

It's a sham, none of these companies are new finds or small startups. It is simply a VC backed and sponsored manufacturing of who WILL be the winners, decided by hedge-fund money that was made at the rest of the worlds expense.

The dotcom orgy has been quietly forgotten and now we are in the 'keep the party going' mode. But underlying this pep talk and upbeat celebration of corporate finance bulling its way into the tech sector is a deep crises lurking that promises to ensure that the dead pool will be the most successful new venture of the year.



So what's under the table? The Dollar is in sharp decline to the point that the currency no longer being accepted by many (even catwalk supermodel Gisele Bundchen wants to be paid for her modeling and sponsorship gigs in euros), and most importantly of all oil traders are looking very seriously at a switch from the Petrodollar to the Euro. Hugo Chavez continues to embrace real democracy all the while america is heading for yet another rigged election. The war on Iraq is in good shape costing millions in lives and blood while the barrels are smuggled out on war ships and to top the lot the bottom just feel out of the US mortgage market. So lets have a celebration for all those hedge funds dollars at the Herbst Theater shall we!













Coming up next is the list of dead pool finalists for 2008. Cast your vote here: http://www.TheArringtonTouch.com

Crunchies2007

Best technology innovation / achievement
Earthmine
Like
Move Networks
Twine
Viewdle

Best bootstrapped start-up
FriendFeed
PoliticalBase
ProductWiki
Techmeme
UpNext

Best new gadget / device
iphone
Kindle
Ooma
Pleo
Wii

Best business model
Glam Media
Imeem
Prosper
Weatherbill
Zazzle

Best design
Etsy
Jackson Fish Market
Netvibes
Smugmug
Songza

Best enterprise start-up
37Signals
Attributor
EditGrid
Ribbit
Zoho

Best consumer start-up
1800FREE411
23andMe
LinkedIn
Meebo
Zillow

Best mobile start-up
AdMob
Fring
Loopt
Shozu
Twitter

Best international start-up
Atlassian
Gizmoz
MusicShake
Netvibes
OpenAds

Best user-generated content
Digg
Facebook
Geni
Instructables
Yelp

Best video site
Aniboom
Hulu
Joost
Justin.tv
Tokbox

Best clean tech start-up
A123 Systems
Ausra
Gridpoint
NanoSolar
Tesla Motors

Best use of viral marketing
Flixster
iLike
iminlikewithyou
RockYou
StumbleUpon

Best time sink site
College Humor
Duels
kdice
Kongregate
Pandora

Most likely to make the world a better place
Causes
DonorsChoose
Kiva
One laptop per child
ZeroFootprint

Most likely to succeed
Kayak
Mint
Slide
Wordpress
Zivity

Best start-up founder
Reid Hoffman
Max Levchin
Kevin Rose
Evan Williams
Mark Zuckerberg

Best start-up CEO
Gina Bianchini
Dick Costolo
Toni Schneider
Rob Solomon
Lance Takoda

Best new start-up of 2007
Hulu
iMedix
Joost
Ribbit
Tumblr

Best overall
Digg
Facebook
GrandCentral
Twitter
Zillow

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