As promised, the final round of voting for the 2007 Crunchies is now live. The 100 nominees were made public not long after I wrote this post last Friday, and everyone is allowed to cast votes once a day in each of the 20 categories until the voting wraps up on January 10. The award ceremony will still be held on January 18 in San Francisco, where the winners will be announced LIVE! (Doesn’t everyone love what that word implies nowadays?)

I considered listing each of the nominees in this post, but if you plan on casting a vote or two (or 20) in the next few days, I assume that you will probably take the time to peruse all of the finalists for yourself. Here are a few highlights:

Nominees for the best new gadget/device of 2007 include the iPhone, the Kindle, the ooma, the Pleo, and Nintendo’s Wii. I hadn’t heard of a Pleo before, although I unknowingly saw one at the mall when I was Christmas shopping last week; it’s a robotic baby dinosaur that displays lifelike emotional and developmental behaviors. I should have known something was up when I saw a toy dinosaur displayed in a protective plastic case at the front of the Sharper Image store (a Pleo retails for around $350). On another note, I’m pretty sure that the first Wii models were released in late 2006—but who knows how binding the rules of the 2007 contest are, especially with this being the inaugural year for the Crunchies.

The nominees for the best new start-up are: Hulu, iMedix, Joost, Ribbit, and Tumblr; while the candidates for the best overall site or product of 2007 are: Digg, Facebook, GrandCentral, Twitter, and Zillow. These are probably the two biggest categories of the contest, although I am intrigued by the best bootstrapped start-up award (for companies that have raised less than $100,000).

There are a handful of sites and companies that were named as repeat finalists in different categories (I know for a fact that this is allowed), as well as some unorthodox awards that I find interesting. Take for example: the website most likely to make the world a better place, or a procrastinator’s favorite: the best time sink site.

I’ll keep my predictions to myself, mainly because they are unsubstantiated and have a good chance of being wrong. Plus, I like to play favorites, and I need to get busy voting. As I mentioned earlier, voting went live five days ago, and since that time, over 20,000 votes have already been cast. So I think I have a good chance of cracking this thing wide open with my one vote a day. Bottom line: robotic baby dinosaurs matter. iPhones? Not so much.

I wrote this post about the Crunchies earlier in the month when the nomination forum for the award contest initially went up. Competing blogs GigaOm, Read/Write Web, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch are co-hosting the event with the hope of honoring this year’s most innovative start-ups, as well as other technological advances made in 2007.

The nomination process wrapped up on Dec. 13, and the Crunchies blog has been promising to post the 100 finalists (for all 20 categories) for several days now. People are beginning to get antsy, especially because the finalists need to go up before another round of live voting can begin, which will eventually determine the winner of each award. The deadline for announcing these finalists has been pushed back twice already, and the blog currently promises that the names will be up by Dec. 21.

That’s today, and it’s 3:43 p.m. eastern time right now. And I don’t see any names. The comment boards have been buzzing, to say the least. I’m interested to see who was nominated, but I’m also not overly agitated that the Crunchies committee has missed a few deadlines. I just wonder if they’ll have enough time to conduct a fair vote, especially with the ceremony scheduled for January 18, and the holidays knocking out a week’s worth of voting on top of the delays.

The names should be posted eventually, and I will try to provide you all with a recap of the finalists when that happens, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my eggnog drinking, gingerbread house making, present opening, and Christmas tree smelling. So yeah, you might have to wait until next week to hear back from me on this.

Earlier this week, the nomination process for the 2007 Crunchies began. Together with GigaOm, Read/Write Web, and VentureBeat, TechCrunch has unveiled a new blog dedicated to this first annual award ceremony. The 2007 Crunchies will recognize promising start-ups and this year’s most compelling internet and technology innovations.

TechCrunch and its fellow blog networks have opened up the nomination forum to the entire internet community, encouraging anyone with an opinion to vote for their favorite product or company in a variety of award categories. For example, there will be an award for the best video site, the best consumer start-up, the company with the best use of viral marketing, the best start-up founder, and so on and so forth.

No companies are excluded from the competition, and only one award (for the best international start-up) has geographic limitations. A single company can be nominated for and win multiple awards, but the achievements that qualify the nominees for these awards must be made within the 2007 calendar year. No nomination fees apply, but each voter is limited to one nomination submission per category.

According to the rules stated on the site, “The Crunchies Committee will select the top five nominated companies per award category based on the quantity, quality and breadth of submissions received.” This sounds a little vague to me, and I’m hoping that the committee won’t exert any bias in their decision making, but I sort of like the idea that sheer numbers may not determine all of the nominations.

Between now and Wednesday, December 12, you can nominate your favorite companies and products for a Crunchie. If you are part of an organization that you believe deserves recognition for achievements made in 2007, you can post a badge on your site encouraging users to nominate and vote for you. Find all available badges here.

After the initial nominations, users can submit one ballot per day to be counted toward the final vote. Award winners will be determined based on popular votes received through website voting up until the middle of January. Finalists, event sponsors, and select members of the press will be invited to the award ceremony in San Francisco, which is scheduled to be held on Friday, January 18.

It’s difficult to say how this first award ceremony will play out before the nominees are announced, but I’m hoping for at least a few surprise entries (or underdogs) on the final ballot. The general public has most of the power when it comes to determining the nominees and the winners, and with TechCrunch headlining the event, nominated companies are sure to net some serious publicity and website traffic.

If you know of a few companies that have gone unnoticed this year, submit their names here. I suppose that better-known companies may snag a few (or most) of the Crunchies, but if you’re like me, you’re hoping that the final ballot will include a little diversity. It would feel too redundant if all we saw on the ballot were names of companies that have been making headlines all year long. You probably won’t score your favorite start-up a Crunchie all on your own, but who knows, a glowing nomination from you may get them some of the press that they deserve.

To read more about the 2007 Crunchies from the event co-hosts themselves, take a look at these recent posts at GigaOm, Read/Write Web, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.

TechCrunch hosted its latest meetup at The Estate (a club off of Boylston Street) this past Friday night, and all I have to say is that Boston’s tech crowd sure knows how to party. The venue was packed to capacity with hundreds of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, as well as the press, PR reps, and a handful of slightly buzzed tech enthusiasts.

The event began at 6:00 and lasted until 11:00, with the crowd only beginning to thin around 10:30 p.m. when many attendees made their way over to the after party at M.J. O’Connor’s. The folks at TechCrunch were gracious enough to reserve the back room of the bar on Columbus Ave to accommodate everyone with plans to party until last call. (You can check out Don Dodge’s blog for a description of the tequila shots that ensued.)

IDG Ventures co-hosted the event alongside Tech Crunch, and additional sponsors included Brightcove, Moola, Mzinga, OurStage, TripAdvisor, MyPunchbowl, and Wine Library TV among many others. Product sponsor SnapYap has also created a video wall with coverage from the event. I think I place myself in the majority when I say that I had a great time, even if the night still feels somewhat like a blur. I blame the whirlwind of free t-shirts, product pitches, business cards, and maybe, possibly, the open bar. What can I say; I’m a sucker for free gin and tonics.

Some notable web celebrities that I spotted at the event were (of course) the TechCrunch team, including founder and co-editor Mike Arrington, CEO Heather Harde, and co-editor Erick Schonfeld. There were honestly too many people in attendance to name, but Doug Levin (the CEO of Black Duck Software), Chris Herot (the CTO of Zingdom), blogger Sarah Wurrey, and social media expert Chris Brogan have all posted recaps of the night that you can peruse as well when you get the chance.

I plan on posting again today with a few more links and insight into the companies and ideas that grabbed my attention at the party.