When you think of Craig Newmark, the thought process usually goes something like this: “He’s the founder of Craigslist, right? Hmm… I wonder if anyone will buy my Snoopy lamp?” And if you ask him, that’s probably fine.

But now, by launching Craigconnects.org – a site aimed at helping organizations that are doing good in this world link up with each other – your way of thinking will most likely change.

In the media world, it’s sometimes difficult finding truly optimistic ventures, but that’s exactly what Craigconnects is. So while this might not be New York centric, it’s certainly worth telling you about.

Newmark tells FishbowlNY that the idea for the site came to him when he looked back on how often he’s lended a hand to various organizations. “Over maybe a decade, I’ve given a lot of nonprofits varying degrees of help, often social media expertise, web consulting, etc. I thought I’d helped maybe thirty, but it turned out to be around one hundred.”

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We interrupt coverage of Mediabistro Circus to bring you news of another media panel going on at New York University today as part of New York’s Internet Week.

I Want Media hosted a panel earlier today featuring former Star magazine editor Bonnie Fuller, Gawker chief Nick Denton, The Wall Street Journal‘s deputy managing editor Alan Murray (left), Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

The discussion, which was supposed to center around the future of the media industry, centered mostly on Twitter. The panelists agreed that they rely on the microblogging site for a lot of their news aggregation.

“I get all of my Wall Street Journal stories from you,” Denton told Murray.

But is Twitter the future of media? Read on to find out what the panelists said.

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Last night’s panel (from left to right) Kevin McKean, Craig Newmark, Rachel Sklar, Ben Popken and Bob Sullivan

Last night, we hit a panel at 92Y Tribeca hosted by the Consumerist and Consumer Reports that focused on online media’s contribution to consumer protection.

The panel, moderated by Consumer Reports‘ editorial director Kevin McKean, featured Consumerist co-executive editor Ben Popken, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark, former Huffington Post contributor Rachel Sklar (who is currently working for Abrams Research) and consumer reporter Bob Sullivan, who writes MSNBC‘s the Red Tape Chronicles column.

Throughout the discussion, Sullivan represented a traditional media point of view while Popken commented on the differences a Web site like Consumerist can make in getting companies to recognize and react to consumer complaints. Newmark advocated social media and consumers’ individual responsibilities to speak up, while Sklar, quoting Ronald Reagan, warned consumers to “Trust, but verify,” their sources of information.

“Anybody who wants to can be an authority, can be a blog publisher, can make their opinion known, can make their experiences known, can join in a movement if they wish,” Sklar said.

More after the jump

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PRWeek EIC Keith O’Brien discusses customer service and branding at mediabistro.com’s Social Media Panel.

Here’s something to think about next time a customer service line puts you on hold: Online networking is quickly making happy customers a top priority for media companies. Tuesday night’s mediabistro.com panel discussion “The Customer is the Company” brought together top editors and executives at downtown Manhattan’s Tribeca Cinemas Gallery to talk about how tools like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace have shifted the power of branding from advertisers to customers.

“Customers have the most impact on a company’s brand,” said Thor Muller, CEO of the customer soapbox GetSatisfaction.com. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark agreed, adding that monitoring customer satisfaction not only gives a firm valuable intelligence, but also creates brand loyalty. As Wired contributing editor Jeff Howe put it, “There’s a lot of goodwill that can be bought very cheaply” by being nice to customers.

When it comes to customer opinion shaping brand perception, “it’s always been happening, but you just didn’t know about it,” moderator and PRWeek editor-in-chief Keith O’Brien told FBNY at the post-panel reception. The shift of control that comes with the rise of social media and the communication channels it affords, has been “terrifying, but ultimately edifying,” he said. “Smart companies will tie it into their business.”

So who’s benefiting from service with a virtual smile? Video interviews after the jump.

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“Newspapers, magazines, and editors ignore crowdsourcing at their own peril,” Wired‘s Jeff Howe told mediabistro.com in a recent interview. “From the perspective of a journalist, the crowd is a threat. From the perspective of publishers and editors the crowd is also a threat, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity.”

So what does that mean for companies trying to prevail in a down economy? It means the customer is always right — now more than ever! Social media is rapidly changing the way companies operate, so now’s the time to learn how you can harness the power of the crowd to stay ahead. Tonight, check out mediabistro.com’s social media panel, The Customer is the Company: How Social Media is Changing Business, at the Tribeca Cinemas Theater. Our panel of experts will discuss how to use community and crowdsourcing to your benefit. Speakers include Craiglist founder Craig Newmark, PR Week editor-in-chief Keith O’Brien, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, Get Satisfaction CEO Thor Muller, Fast Company‘s Lynne D. Johnson, FreshBooks’ Saul Colt, and Wired contributing editor Jeff Howe.

This event is sold out in the main theater, but you can still join us for the simulcast in the bar, where the talk will be streamed in real time. And don’t forget to mix and mingle with the panelists after the discussion!

Craig Newmark of Craigslist is over at that LA Times talking about the only thing any media people are talking about these days: the future of newspapers and whether there is one. Newmark seems to hew to the increasingly popular school of thought that the future of newspapers is local. But he also revealed this little interesting tidbit: he recently became a first-time subscriber to the New York Times! Apparently it all had to do with a mysterious woman named Wendy.

And basically, what I’m hearing from them is, and what I’m seeing too — I was on a panel with Dean Singleton — what people seem to want are a few sources of national news overall and then a lot of very local stuff, because now and then we do care about really big issues, and that’s important, and for that reason people do want national newspapers in some form. And that’s why I recently, for the first time ever, subscribed to the New York Times. If you’re ever talking to Arthur Sulzberger, tell him you’ve heard about the mysterious Wendy who convinced me to subscribe to the Times. It’s a running joke.

Craig Newmark tells CNN that when it comes to online reading he “checks out the Fishbowl sites.” Hi Craig! We are also big fans — we have Craigslist to thank for our apartment, desk, kitchen table, and DNC accommodations, the list goes on.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Newspapers, consider your lunch eaten, and your ass kicked by the big bad online bully for dessert: Online classifieds hub Craigslist will enjoy an estimated $81 million in revenue this year, up from an estimated $55 million in 2007, according to a report released this morning by interactive classified advertising consulting firm Classified Intelligence LLC.

Let’s see the latest figures on how online impresario Craig Newmark is putting the rest of the media world to shame, according to Classy Intel:

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At parties and events, some entrepreneurial journalists (is that an oxymoron or what?) have started to ask “How do you start a media company?” and I’ve even considered writing a book on the subject. But, in the meantime, if you want my thoughts (and the insights of Arianna Huffington, Craig Newmark and a few other luminaries), you can attend this Media Talk on November 7th at 6:30 pm..

Since David Carr is the moderator, I’m sure it’ll be a bunch of softball questions, too
Details after the jump.

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Andersen, Auletta, Kurtz also shut out

The first annual Mirror Awards were presented at a Meredith Vieira-hosted luncheon today at the W hotel in Midtown, and our mediabistro.com mothership — a finalist in the media information services category — lost to HealthNewsReview.org. In other words, we were robbed.

Still, we weren’t the only overwhelming favorite among the 23 finalists to go home empty-handed. New York Times media man David Carr won for best column, upsetting his former boss Kurt Andersen (“Kurt plucked me off a turnip truck when I got to New York”) and Washington Post media guy Howard Kurtz, who was 0-for-2. Kurtz’s CNN show, Reliable Sources, lost to the American Journalism Review for overall excellence.

The New Yorker‘s Ken Auletta, praised for his profile of CNN’s Lou Dobbs, watched the best article award go to New York magazine’s Phillip Weiss for his profile of Craig Newmark, craigslist’s lovable nerd.

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