2/27/01 - According to TrendWatch, last summer, 47% of publishers reported excellent business conditions; now, come Winter, that number has dropped to 36%. The number of publishers reporting poor conditions rose from 8% to 11%, and the number reporting very bad conditions rose from 1% to 2%. Not surprisingly, magazine publishers were among the hardest hit. It's not news to anyone in magazine publishing that advertisers are scaling back their spending --some are now seeing less and less of a need for staples. Yet periodicals are expected to have a robust online presence--and with the same budgets and resources that barely produce a print edition. Now come eBooks and wireless publishing--but no new budgets for them. Book publishers are trying to diversify, but is it any wonder that magazine publishers have been conspicuously absent from the eBook fray?