Hundreds entered.

Twenty one made the first cut.

In the end, only three were left standing.

They now take their rightful place as the sexiest, most eligible non-profits alive.

I write, of course, about the winners of Netsquared.org’s Mash-up Challenge: a competition for the best use of web tools for social good.

The 21 finalists — some of which are mere concepts, some of which are established websites looking to expand and scale — ranged from:

A proposal to use your mobile phone to do impromptu volunteer activities…to a system for getting targeted alerts about pending genocide legislation… to a  site that allows everyday citizens to submit questions for journalists to pose to lawmakers…

(full list of finalists)

Over the course of the two-day Netsquared Conference at the Cisco Center in San Jose, CA, the 21 finalist projects presented, jockeyed, politicked, and schmoozed their way toward the final voting session, during which conference attendees voted on their favorites. I myself was on the receiving end of an outrageous bribe — a bic pen — by a non-profit that shall remain nameless.

Check out my video blog on the winners:

Here’s my other coverage of the event, starting with my favorite post:

Live-blogging from Netsquared: Second Life and the Non-profit Commons (the most meta panel I’ve ever attended)

More videos and posts after the jump…

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The 3rd annual Netsquared Conference just announced the winners of its mash-up competition — whose entrants are non-profit organizations using web tools for social good.

First prize ($25,000)

Ushahidi.com, a tool for mapping reports of violence and other unrest on GoogleMaps

Second prize: ($15,000)

Knowmore.org’s Firefox Extension, which alerts users when they visit web sites of companies with corporate abuse records, took the $15,000 second prize.

Third prize: ($10,000)

SocialActions.com, a search tool for social action campaigns, took home the $10,000 3rd-place prize. (They also found out they snagged another $10,000 cash injection from the Case foundation.)

(Here’s the list of 21 finalists .)

Here’s the video of the announcement and reaction shots from the winners: