Wii-ching New Audiences

I let this post simmer for a bit in order to organize my thoughts, but the initial idea came from spending Thanksgiving with my family. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving I bought the new Nintendo Wii (pronounced: we).   Nintendo has not been shy about their goal for the Wii - they hope to reach out to an audience beyond the current "gamer" group.    In order to achieve that goal the Wii is small, sleek, quiet, affordable and, most importantly, utilizes a motion sensing controller that resembles a TV remote that Nintendo hopes will be more inviting for non-gamers to use. 

Deciding to test this out I brought the console home with me for Thanksgiving and let my relatives take it out for a spin.   The result was an undeniable success, as everyone from teenagers to senior citizens were thrilled to play games on it. They tried the pre-packaged game, "Wii Sports", which includes bowling, tennis, golf, baseball, and boxing, and were very enthusiastic about the experience.  Whether or not the Wii will be a success in the long term depends on how many of those people go out and purchase their own (I think I had one definite sale in the room, I'll be contacting Nintendo about my commission), but in the meantime the internet is flooded with stories of similar experiences and it looks like Nintendo has been successful in reaching new customers with their product.

So how does this apply to books?  While I don't have the Bookscan numbers in front of me, I remember reading last year that if you look at how many books people buy per year the curve is very low around the 1-2 end and quite a bit higher when we get to 5+, which, when combined with slow industry growth, implies that the set of readers the book industry is catering to is fairly well defined.

What features are books missing that are stopping them from reaching larger audiences?   Personally I think that books suffer from being an unsocial medium in a social age.   It generally takes several hours of time by yourself, in a quite place to read a book.  And then, unlike movies, you do not immediately leave the experience with several other people who have also enjoyed that piece of art, so there is no immediate chance to talk about it.   While I'm a bit biased on this topic, internet forums and e-books are obviously a help here, but what else is available?   Reading groups?    I feel like this model needs to evolve a bit, if only because  reading groups lack spontaneity and make reading into a commitment.  Which works for some people, but not for others, and leads me to my next point . . .

While books have offer a great ratio of entertainment hours to price, the sheer size of the works can create a high barrier to entry in a world where readers are interrupted by e-mail, phone calls, text messages, blog feeds, and every other manner of distraction on a regular basis - when is a reader going to find several uninterrupted hours to enjoy their pastime?  Here, serialization seems helpful, since it helps turn reading into an illicit distraction itself while also providing content at a pace that allows reading to be a break instead of a commitment.

Does anyone else have thoughts about what changes to the book form could introduce new readers to this medium?