[font color=\'#000000\']As for the magazine market, you are right - it is geting worse and most magazines are running behind the information on the internet and the (few) good forums available here.
But you have to consider the target market.
German example: 'Photo Magazin' - consumer mag, oriented towards hobby photographers, mostly male, interested in consumer products and having the new one out right away. No negative reviews ever - always supporting major advertisers - and focusing on consumer technology.
'Photography' - founded originally by the German photographic society and still partially supported by it, has fewer advertisers and is slowly moving in the same direction of the first mag. It has less reviews of equippment, but much more reviews on portifolios of artists and reports on 'how to' both darkroom and digital - but they are about a year/six month back on the subject compared to the net.
'Pro-Foto', the magazine for the pros - featuring advertising campaigns and such. This mag is on the edge of technology, nothing is innovative enough - but there is no critique - advertisers are too important. Yet it is entertaining, fun even.
Last 'Schwarz-Weiß' (Black and White) is a magazine for the most serious black and white printers and users of large format cameras. Darkroom only, this magazine has a hard time to adjust to the advent of the digital technology. They occasionally run an articel on digital processing (very knowledgable) but somehow do not dare to embrace it. Artist portifolios are excellent. They are really funny when endorsing a web site of interest - almost embarrased how they say that this web site is in English. Well this mag only appears four times a year - it is that exclusive or underfunded.
What you get here, however, is a mirror of the market. Lots of consumers snapping family and vacation- which is perfectly ok, quite a few serious hobby people, interested in the real stuff and working on it, the pros, who have to play to survive and well, the rest - the very committed to quality and image most of whom are lucky to not have to make a living from that.
My argument: you can not blame them. This is reality.
The web here has an important function - it is democracy in the business. It serves all of us.
Why am I interseted in this subject? I teach marketing at a business school, and knowing the scene of photography (working in this field myself), I sometimes use it as an example.
Greetings from Germany
Angela[/font]