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Season’s greetings! We want to extend our heartfelt thanks for sticking with us through a doozy of a year. Your enthusiasm and unwavering support are part of the reason we’re still around to celebrate the holidays with you. As 2023 draws to a close, we wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Kwanzaa, a Joyous Festivus, and Happy Holidays for your traditions during the holiday season.
Today is a big day for DPReview: it’s our 25th anniversary. The site officially launched on December 25, 1998, with the publication of the Canon Pro 70 review. We’ll be celebrating this anniversary throughout 2024, but you can get a head start: scroll to the bottom of our homepage and use the archive browser* to travel back in time to any month or year in DPReview’s history. There’s never been a better time to re-read our original review of your favorite camera.
Regular readers will know we weren’t supposed to be here by December. Earlier this year, our parent company announced plans to close DPReview as part of a larger restructuring. We were disappointed about the prospect of losing our jobs, but to us, the real tragedy was the idea of losing DPReview as a resource for the photography community. It’s our favorite site, too, and the prospect of an internet without DPReview was just as devastating to us as it was to you.
Fortunately, that’s not how our story ends. In June, we were acquired by Gear Patrol, another company focused on high-quality product journalism whose values and mission align with our own. Not only that, but Gear Patrol CEO Eric Yang is an enthusiast photographer who has a great vision for the site, and we’re excited about what the future holds.
“Today is a big day for DPReview: it’s our 25th anniversary.”
However, the experience earlier this year was humbling, and we were shocked at the level of support we received, not just from readers but from industry leaders, the national news media, manufacturers, and even some of our competitors. It reminded us that we are stewards of something special, something bigger than us.
We’re so grateful for your support over the past 25 years. We’ve seen many changes to digital photography during that time: the DSLR revolution, the rise of smartphones, the evolution of mirrorless technology, and much more. As we look back over the past quarter century, we’re reminded of all the DPReview staffers who put their blood, sweat, and tears into the site over the years, as well as all the members of our community who contributed to making DPReview such a special place. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished together.
Before you go, please take a moment to share a few of your favorite highlights from DPReview history in the comments. We’re on this journey together, and we’d love to know what stands out in your memory.
From all of us at DPReview – the editors who research and write stories, the developers who work so hard behind the scenes to make things work, and the business teams who keep us on solid footing – we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season. We can’t wait to see what the next 25 years will bring.
*The archive browser is available using the desktop version of DPReview.
