STARDUST.COM JOIN'S PENTON'S INTERNET MEDIA GROUP.

Penton Media, Inc. (NYSE:PME), Cleveland, Ohio, has acquired privately held Stardust.com, Campbell, CA, a leading information services company serving emerging Internet technologies market segments. Stardust.com joins Penton's Internet Media Group, which includes the Internet World trade shows and magazine, ISPCON events, Boardwatch and CLEC magazines, CLECexpo, and a host of on-line media products. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1995, Stardust.com (formerly Stardust Forums) is an internationally respected knowledge services company that facilitates collaboration between Internet technology standards bodies, technology product vendors and the IT user community to speed market adoption of next-generation Internet technologies. Its highly regarded products include: the annual IP Multicast Summit and the twice-yearly iBAND conference; the IP Multicast Initiative and QoS Forum; and an extensive portfolio of technology reports, news round ups and intelligence services. The Stardust.com Web site is recognized as a leading portal for network engineers seeking vendor-neutral information on new Internet technologies.

"Stardust.com's strengths in the emerging Internet technologies space adds a tremendously valuable element to our Internet media portfolio," said Penton Media CEO Thomas L. Kemp. "The knowledge base of the Stardust.com team is unmatched, and the alliances they have formed between the standards body, vendor and target Internet market communities are critical to the future development of the Internet.

"The management teams from Stardust and Internet World will be working aggressively toward leveraging their collective expertise, information assets and customer relationships to grow our media business in the dynamic Internet sector. We expect we'll grow the business through both new product development and enhancement of existing media products."

Stardust.com's customers include software, hardware and network engineers from hundreds of companies worldwide. Companies subscribing to Stardust.com services, and which have been members of Stardust's technology initiatives since its 1995 launch, include 3Com, Ascend Communications, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, MCI, Microsoft, Netscape, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and Xerox PARC.

The Stardust.com operation will remain in Campbell, located outside San Jose. It continues to be managed by President Karen Milne and CTO Martin Hall, co-founders of the business. Ms. Milne spent 16 years of her career with Unisys in strategic market planning, product management and business development roles in the company's US and Europe/Africa divisions. Mr. Hall is the co-inventor of WinSock. Startdust.com will be part of the Penton division managed by Executive VP/Group President David Nussbaum.

Penton Media, Inc. (NYSE:PME) is a leading diversified business media company that produces market-focused magazines, Web sites, trade shows, and conferences, and provides marketing and business development services. Penton serves the Internet/IT; electronics; design/engineering; food/natural products/retail; government/compliance; leisure/hospitality; management; manufacturing; mechanical systems/construction; and supply chain/aviation markets. The Company generated 1998 revenues of $233.1 million. For more information, visit the Penton Media Web site at www.penton.com.

For more information, call 216/931-9551.