Publisher FUD: The "battle" against Angry Birds

Apparently publishers are getting worried that with books moving to tablet devices, they will get destroyed by having to compete with games and other applications for the user’s attention. The idea is that why would anyone ever want to read a book when there’s so much else to do on the same device?

The problem with this idea is that you can flip the logic around and come up with the reverse. Why would anyone want to play Angry Birds, a simple, mostly mindless game with 10 seconds of story to it, when they can open up a book on the same device and read an intricate, compelling story that will keep them captivated for days?

This is nothing new. Books have competed with so many other entertainment choices for decades, centuries even. Before the iPad, there were game consoles. Before that, TV. Before that, movies. Before even that, plays. In addition, all of those had advantages that iPad apps don’t: switching to a book was an activity that actually required some effort if they were watching a screen or at a theater. Yet, did Hollywood destroy the publishing world? Absolutely not. So why would mobile apps be able to do it?

The theater had to compete with something that the customer had to buy, store somewhere, and have with them when they had the need for entertainment. eBooks have got all of that covered already - the barrier to an Angry Birds player for switching to reading a book is only the one-time cost of the book itself. I don’t think tablets, or even the applications, are going to threaten publishers - if anything, they’ll be revived by them.