Kindle and eBook Xmas Success to Fuel Change?

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The day after Christmas, Amazon announced that Kindle and its eBooks are still on top of the eReader/Book mountain. It's supposed to be the most "gifted" item in its company's history and that their eBooks outsold the physical ones. Granted they only compared the sales to themselves and not with their competitors, still it's a big achievement considering that selling physical books online is their main bread and butter.

Is this the start of something big or is it just a phase? Will people finally be convinced to leaving their hardbounds and paperbacks for eBooks? Some who have been collecting books for a long time aren't that too sold on eBooks: they are saying that it strains the eyes after reading for a few hours, while some are afraid of missing holding a thick book or even the smell of a freshly unpackaged novel. For me and all of the people who bought the Nook and clogged up the Barnes & Noble site will agree with me that it's time to shift mediums: from paper to electronic.

However, the main problem seems to be the availability of the medium: the eReaders. Most eReaders are in the West and most European countries while the bookworms of the East would have to sell their arm and leg just to get one. And don't even get me started with using credit cards to buy an online book.

The good thing is that the seeds have been sown, it may take quite a while, but eventually eBooks will take over and more trees will love the world for it.