Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the novel originated in Japan. Still, the next phase in the evolution of that genre took me by surprise: the latest Japanese novels have gone mobile.
According to The New York Times writer, Norimitsu Onishi, "of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels." Moreover, "the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists."
While I was sleeping, somewhere along 2000, the cellphone novel emerged. The reality that I am just now awakening to -- that many blogs are actually written as novels -- wasn't lost on Maho no i-rando, a Web page creation site, as early as seven years ago. Adapting to the trend, Maho no i-rando tweaked it's coding to simplify content uploads and allow readers to comment on works in progress. As a result, the "serialized cellphone novel" was born.
Onishi, notes that "the number of users uploading novels began booming only two to three years ago, and the number of novels listed on the site reached one million last month." It's a boom that seems to have been driven by economics; by the decision of Japan's cell phone conglomerates to "offer unlimited transmission of packet data, like text-messaging, as part of flat monthly rates."
Read Onishi's full article "Thumbs Race as Japan's Best Sellers Go Cellular."
-- By Brenda Friedrich
In addition to her role as a web editor for the Des Moines Alliance, Brenda Friedrich is also an independent communications consultant and blog author of Enroute 365.
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