Last night we gave an overview of our thought process for coming up with the award that will be given to each category winner for the Crunchies event on Friday night in San Francisco.
The award itself, created by Clockwork Apple, is 14 inches tall and created in a very hard, very heavy cast plastic. The inspiration comes from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the movie a tribe of prehistoric ape-men interact with a black monolith that appears near them. The monolith inspires one of them to create the first use of technology – a bone used as a tool and a weapon. The video clip of the segment is in our original post on the award.
We are honoring startups that have innovated in technology; thus, we feel the award is symbolic culturally and appropriate. The additional flourishes, such as the baseball cap and jersey, were the idea of the artist to modernize the setting. And the ape is beating on old technology with his bone – a symbol of the disruptive nature of the technology world, where young startups often feast on their older, slower siblings.
One of these awards will be given to the winner of each of the twenty categories for the Crunchies (21 categories actually, we have an additional surprise award). The winners’ logos will be added to the award.
Very last tickets just became available
We are down to the last few available seats for the awards. We held a few hundred in reserve for sponsors, nominees and press. The ones not taken (about 60) have been put into the general queue and can be purchased here. The event starts at 7:30 and should end by 9. We’ll then have a party until about midnight. Everything is taking place at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.
Thank you to the sponsors of the 2007 Crunchies who are underwriting the event and making it possible to recognize outstanding contributions in our industry. Award Benefactors: Adobe, Charles River Ventures, The Mayfield Fund, Microsoft, Our Stage and Sun Microsystems. Thank you also to our Program Sponsors, including Ask, Intel Capital, Lehman Brothers, Meevee, RealTimeMatrix’s Vortex, our official ticketing sponsor amiando, WeBreakStuff for design and MediaTemple for hosting.