And now, the moment you all have been waiting for: VentureBeat, GigaOm, and TechCrunch are pleased to announce the finalists for the 2012 Crunchies awards.
We combed through thousands of your submissions, considered your votes, and put them together with our editors' expertise to come up with this list. The companies, technologies, and achievements on this list are the cream of the crop -- the most innovative, impactful, and world-beating ideas to come out of the tech world.
Check out our finalists in all 20 categories below. And congratulations to every one of them for making it to this exclusive list.
Now we need you to vote on the finalists! Head over to the 2012 Crunchies voting page and tell us which is your favorite in each category.
The Crunchies, a joint production with our friends at TechCrunch and GigaOm, take place on Thursday, Jan. 31, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco. You can purchase tickets here.
Best Technology Achievement
Felix Baumgartner's Jump Google Glass Mars Curiosity SpaceX docks with International Space Station Tesla Supercharger Network
Best Collaborative Consumption Service
Airbnb Get It Now/Postmates Lyft TaskRabbit Uber
Best E-Commerce Application
Fab Hotel Tonight Karma/Facebook Gifts Warby Parker Zulily
Best Mobile Application
Evernote Google Maps Grindr Instagram Square
Fastest Rising Startup
Exec Lyft Pinterest Snapchat Stripe
Best Content Discovery Application
Flipboard Instapaper Pinterest Prismatic Tumblr
Best Design
Facebook Timeline Medium Paper by FiftyThree Square Svbtle
Best Bootstrapped Startup
FreshBooks Instapaper Nimbus Techmeme Upverter
Sexiest Enterprise Startup
Asana Box Cloudera Plexxi Zendesk
Best International Startup
Hailo Rovio Soundcloud Spotify Xiaomi
Best Education Startup
Codecademy Coursera Edmodo Khan Academy Udacity
Best Hardware Startup
Lit Motors Lockitron Makerbot Nest Raspberry Pi
Best Time Sink
Angry Birds Star Wars Buzzfeed Letterpress Pinterest WhatsApp
Biggest Social Impact
Donors Choose Indiegogo Kickstarter Kiva Reddit
Angel of the Year
Michael Arrington Chris Dixon Paul Graham David Lee Chris Sacca
VC of the Year
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz Matt Cohler Jim Goetz Michael Moritz Peter Thiel
Founder of the Year
Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb) Kevin and Julia Hartz (Eventbrite) Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla) Kevin Systrom (Instagram) Nir Zuk (Palo Alto Networks)
CEO of the Year
Dick Costolo (Twitter) Phil Libin (Evernote) Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!) Larry Page (Google) Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Best New Startup of 2012
Coursera Crowdtilt Lyft Snapchat Waze
Best Overall Startup of 2012
Fab Github Instagram Palantir Square
Your Favorites
Which ones deserve to win? Go to the 2012 Crunchies voting page and tell us which is your favorite in each category. Do it now!