This began as an outline on my liveblog, but I felt the idea deserved more attention.#The Crunchies are a product of what I call the VC-based tech industry. But that's not the only tech industry. There's so much more going on here than bankers and advertising. I started making a list of awards I'd like to see, here it is, with some ideas. #
Open format and protocol of the year#
Hall of Fame#
People or products that influenced all that came after. We have a lot of catching up to do here. For me, the big ones are the C programming language, the PDP-11 machine architecture, Unix, Visicalc, 1-2-3, the Macintosh and IBM PC, Mosaic, Flickr, Twitter. #
Like sporting halls of fame, we should also include leaders who made a difference, and journalists who covered our work intelligently and with care. #
Giving back#
Giving money to hospitals is great. But let's honor technologists who got rich and gave back to the ecosystem that produced the technology that made their work possible. This would be pure philanthropy, not embrace and extend. There is very little of this, but awarding it would create incentives for there to be more.#
User trust#
What company gave the users freedom to switch. The bigger the trust, the more we want to honor you.#
Best commercial API#
We hardly ever compare them. Last year I discovered there was a huge diff betw Twitter's and Facebook's APIs. #