This Mannerisms post caught my eye - Japanese Pioneer The Handset NovelA new literary form is emerging in high-tech Japan, with stories being specifically created for mobile handsets. Apparently the works - collectively known as Keitai Shosetsu - are avidly consumed by younger phone users.
With the tales being divided into short, tantalising excerpts - each of which takes about three minutes to read (about the average time between stops on the Japanese Tube) - David Manners draws an interesting parallel with the Victrorian-style serialisation of Dickens' novels.
Maybe one budding author exploring this new literary form will emerge as a literary genius iof our age. Maybe.
When put together into ordinary book form - again, a la Dickens - the top seller, called Koizora Setsunai Koi Monogatari (Love Sky) proved very popular, selling two million copies.
With subscriptions to these tales grossing £42m in 2006, the network operators should be very happy with the new literary developments.
Apparently, when the 2007 Japanese bestseller list came out, the top three most popular novels were all written initially for the mobile phone.
This information came from David Wood, founder and executive vice president of Symbian. Wood told Silicon South-West's recent Wireless 2.0 conference that Keitai Shosetsu have attracted a 25m audience.
When put together into ordinary book form - again, a la Dickens - the top seller, called Koizora Setsunai Koi Monogatari (Love Sky) proved very popular, selling two million copies.
With subscriptions to these tales grossing £42m in 2006, the network operators should be very happy with the new literary developments.
Apparently, when the 2007 Japanese bestseller list came out, the top three most popular novels were all written initially for the mobile phone.
This information came from David Wood, founder and executive vice president of Symbian. Wood told Silicon South-West's recent Wireless 2.0 conference that Keitai Shosetsu have attracted a 25m audience.
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
