Second Keynote Speaker For Conference - Craig Newmark, Craigslist Founder

Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist will be the second headline Keynote Speaker at the upcoming WebGuild Web 2.0 Conference & Expo on Tuesday, January 29, 2008.

We all know Craigslist which is described as a centralized network of online communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, internships, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories) and forums on various topics. Craig, himself, is a web-oriented software engineer by training, with 30 years of IT experience at companies such as IBM and Bank of America, Craig now spends his days working as a customer service rep at Craigslist.

In 1995 while Craig was working at Schwab, he started craigslist as an email list for friends and co-workers about events going on in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1999, Craig retired from IT consulting to work full-time on Craigslist. What started as a fun side project in Craig's living room has since grown into one of the busiest sites on the internet, helping people with basic day-to-day needs such as finding a job, an apartment and a date, all within a culture of trust. Craig continues to embrace his inner nerd though he no longer wears thick black glasses that are held together with tape, and he retired the plastic pocket protector some years ago.

Craig is involved with a variety of community efforts and is particularly interested in organizations promoting public diplomacy, mideast peace and new forms of media such as participatory journalism. He's on the boards of Sunlight Foundation, OneVoice, FactCheckED, and VotoLatino. Craig graduated from Case Western University.

Don't miss his keynote! Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia will be the first Keynote.