The good news is that UK, Irish, other European startups and – in fact – any startup in the world will be able to enter the Crunchies, a new year-end startup competition and award ceremony/party which TechCrunch is coordinating with three other blog networks – GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb and Venturebeat (click on the links to see their coverage). The idea is this: let the community decide who to nominate, and who wins, in a number of award categories. The whole thing will be topped off with a big award ceremony and party in San Francisco. There will be sponsors for this event (see the event page for details if you would like to participate), but Sun Microsystems Business Analytics is first charter sponsor of the Crunchies. The four participating blogs will be sharing the decision making process and the economics of the event.
If you think there is scope for this event to be branched-out to individual countries, or perhaps a ‘European’ event, then say so in the comments. Or would you prefer this was an event which was largely global in nature? Let us know.