Simba Information a publishing and media market research firm (take a breath) has released some figures that say 8% of the adult U.S. population has purchased an eBook in the past 12 months and 15% read one. (The 7% discrepancy must have visited Project Gutenberg or another of the growing number of Free eBook Outlets.)

I find those numbers promising and a little startling. Startling, because it shows an interest in adoption, promising because it shows a willingness to adapt. Those polled could not represent a living breathing population of eBook Reader owners, so the interest to read eBooks has driven these individuals to adapt iPhones, hand-helds and desktops to the task.

You can check out the article at AjaxWorld Magazine here. A very positive sign, yah?

p.s. I’m sorry for being catty again but this statement jumped out at me. I’m adding it because I don’t want you thinking I think it’s news or profound or in any way deserving of the consultation fees these firms usually charge: “Norris [Michael Norris Senior Analyst, Trade Group] said the e-book market, in spite of recent advances, still has a lot of growing up to do and should be “cautiously” pursued as long as that pursuit does not undermine the value proposition of a publisher’s content, interfere with other initiatives to encourage engaged reading, or provide too much power to one e-book retailer.”  Well, duh!

In The Trailing Edge of the Envelope department, we’ve got a story at CNNMoney entitled “Amazon: thinking beyond the Kindle” in which the reporter really doesn’t say anything new, or refer to anything beyond what many of us have been thinking about for years. Still worth a look since there are interesting links, yah. Click here to read it.

In the Old News is No News department we’ve got a piece posted yesterday, at InternetNews of all places, heralding the release of BlackBerry’s eReader. (That’s so last week isn’t it?) I’ll cut them a bit of slack because they go on to mention the impending releases of a reader for Android and Linux. So, they kind of come through in the clutch. Then they fumble the ball when the article goes on to talk about the eBook battle heating up. Honestly! That’s so, February… it’s been heating up here for much longer, yah? Still worth viewing for the Android and Linux talk… Read it here.

Just when you believe you haven’t gone through a time warp, I find the London Free Press announcing that “Virtual books [are] making waves on mobile phones…” Read the article here. Apparently, they just found out yesterday that eBooks are catching on. On the upswing we finally hear something from Indigo, the book giant that is apparently just coming out of a coma. “Indigo says its recently launched digital book service has attracted customers in some 120 countries, and adds that most of the users are doing their e-reading via mobile phone.” Wow…can you imagine?

Sorry if I sound CATTY, but these stories are lagging in the SCOOP department. Could it be that eBooks are finally, really, being embraced by the mainstream as a viable alternative to traditional publishing, if not the future of it? Were all these news sources just biding their time waiting for the whole thing to flop? Sure seems like it.