I agree with lupin_sansei. The article lacks a credible source to back up their conclusions. In fact, I believe just recently I stumbled upon some numbers that suggest otherwise: because of the Internet people get caught up in the net of social marketing and start buying more books: "OMG!! everybody is reading this, I gotta buy one too" Several books became very popular this way: Freakonomics, Tipping Point, Long Tail.

Seriously, without this largely Internet-based hype about Long Tail I cannot see an article like that (about something obvious) make a book, and a popular one.

"As a format, the book is becoming less and less popular in the modern world."

Any figures to back that up? What with the internet's biggest shop being an online bookstore, and the proliferation of Borders I wonder is that is really true.

Besides the web is just one big reading machine anyway.

Without Amazon, I would never had as much books as I have now. I'm even buying books legally available as PDFs/HTML (including books I've already read). I don't see them disappear anytime soon unless someone comes up with a really good portable device able to compete with paper.

edit: and with websites such as lulu.com I'm sure we'll see even more books printed.