If you haven't visited our web site in the last week, you may have missed the news that Penton Media has acquired WeldingWeb.com (www.weldingweb.com), an online community and discussion forum.

WeldingWeb.com is being integrated with our Weldingdesign.com (www.weldingdesign.com) web site, and this community forum will add a key interactive component to what we are make available.

Our web site includes articles, columns, and technical information drawn from both Welding Design & Fabrication and Gases & Welding Distributor magazines, and with the addition of WeldingWeb.com we are gaining more than 7,000 registered members who make up a strong and active community that is focused on welding.

One of the advantages of having this active community is that we now will offer one place to go for extensive technical and product information, advice on welding problems, market interaction and social interaction.

Our Internet site has a strong, vertical search engine that can help you to find information on any topic related to welding, and it eliminates the secondary information that tends to clog up searches on the standard search engines. So if you are looking for information on welding torches, our search engine gives you that information, and you don't have to slog through pages of references to tiki torches or other kind of torches.

In addition to that, if you have a torch and you're having troubles with it, or if you need to know the right mix for a shielding gas, or you need to find out why a weld isn't working as you thought it would, you can go on-line and ask for advice. Chances are that some of the people you would be talking to have a solution to your problem and, if they don't, they may be able to point you to a place where you can find a solution.

WeldingWeb has a qualified, engaged community of professionals working in the welding and fabrication industries.

The site has something for just about anyone, from welding shop owners and the serious professional welder to the hobbyist. And, if you just want to socialize with like-minded people, you can get on and post messages as long as you can avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.

Purchasing this lively web site and making it a part of the package that we offer is one more step in our effort to provide friction-free dialogue for our welding community through a variety of methods.

With the addition of WeldingWeb.com, we now can offer a full range of content in addition to the community content generated by the members on the site. Our magazine - and the information we provide in print-will be more visible and, through the affiliation with the magazine, we will be able to attract new members to the on-line community and further enhance its status as the leading on-line community for welding professionals.

We are delivering ways to get new and important information about our industry to you, to keep our community strong and growing.