Nook sales aside, the tsunami continues

What does it matter that Barnes & Noble had bad holiday sales? Does that mean books will mean less to people in the future? No. You can read all about the disappointing B&N digital device sales (Nook sales down 12.6 percent) in various places on the web right now. (Here's a pretty good one: http://www.idealog.com/) And what does it matter that digital content sales were disappointing (even though they were up: only 13 percent from last year). Does that mean that fewer people are reading books electronically? No. Only strict market watchers and investment people care about these short-term holiday sales figures. Those of us who believe in the progressive/revolutionary nature of digital readers and content know that the tsunami-like transition to electronic reading continues unabated. About one third of Americans now have read a book on a digital device. And there are by some accounts about 2 million ebooks out there. And every day more ebooks are sold by Amazon than print books. And the big news, as I've reported here before, is how the world is poised to adopt ereaders. There will be a big push of digital readers into South America, China, India and Europe this year.