March 20, 2000

UTNE MAGAZINE ONLINE'S CAFE UTNE NOMINATED FOR WEBBYS 2000

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- The Webby Awards, the international online community's top accolade, announced Wednesday the nomination of Utne Magazine Online's Café Utne for a Webby Award in the category of Best Community Web site. Widely hailed as "the Oscars of the Internet", the Webby Awards unite the online world for a celebration of the Internet's best.

"The Webby Awards showcase the best of what the Internet has to offer in terms of innovation, creativity and originality," said Tiffany Shlain, Founder and Director of the Webby Awards, and President of The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. "Café Utne's nomination for a Webby Award is a testament to its great contributions in pushing the Internet envelope."

"We are tremendously excited about being nominated," commented Christopher Pollard, recently appointed Online Director of Utne Magazine Online. "This is a tremendous recognition of 5 years of hard work by the Utne Magazine Online staff."

Cafe Utne's 100,000-member community grew out of Utne Magazine's Neighborhood Salon Association, founded in 1991 to "revive the endangered art of conversation and encourage engaged citizen participation in the life of their communities," according to Utne Magazine Chair and CEO, Nina Utne. The Cafe's birth in 1995 brought this mission to cyberspace, where Café members "salon" about everything from politics to cooking, neighborhood activism to global travel, to the search for spiritual meaning.

Café Utne has historically been characterized by the stability and longevity of its members, who are themselves distinguished by their independence, intelligence and diversity. The Café's 50 hosts and mentors play a critical role in maintaining the vibrancy of the Café's cyber-conversations.

Also key to the Café's continuing growth and popularity is its state-of-the-art software platform. Soon to be upgraded to Motet 2.0, Café Utne provides multiple tiers of public and private conferencing spaces within the site, allowing Utne Magazine Online to also host partners' communities within its existing Café Utne community structure.

"Café Utne's partnerships are a new and exciting program on which we're embarking, a natural extension of our original salon tradition," explains Pollard. Current affiliates already include independent media partners like Powell's books, the American News Service, Hightower Radio, Escape Magazine, Troika Magazine, and ForeWord Magazine.

The 4th annual Webby Awards (www.webbyawards.com); will take place on May 11, 2000 in San Francisco atop historic Nob Hill. Nearly 3,000 digerati from around the world will attend the Webby Awards 2000. As a nominee for a Webby Award, Utne Magazine Online is also eligible to win a People's Voice Award, voted by the online community, with winners announced during The Webby Awards webcast on May 11, 2000.

Utne Magazine Online (www.utne.com); has been published independently in Minneapolis since 1995, delivering a rich archive of Utne Magazine magazine material from "The Best of the Alternative Media", plus hundreds of book, magazine, music, web site and product reviews. Café Utne is one of the nation's oldest and most active discussion communities online (Source: Forum One, January 2000). -30-