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Novels Composed on Cellphones Topping Japanese Best Seller Lists 81

Posted by Zonk from the tiny-text-long-tail dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has up an article examining the rise of blogs/novels that make the transition to published books. Recent Japanese best-seller lists have been heavy with these texts, many of them actually written on cellphones for a cellphone reading audience. Commentators note the popularity of this form of literature coincides with cell providers moving to unlimited data packages. 'The affordability of cellphones coincided with the coming of age of a generation of Japanese for whom cellphones, more than personal computers, had been an integral part of their lives since junior high school. So they read the novels on their cellphones, even though the same Web sites were also accessible by computer. They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25.'"
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Novels Composed on Cellphones Topping Japanese Best Seller Lists More

Novels Composed on Cellphones Topping Japanese Best Seller Lists

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  • Recent Japanese best-seller lists have been heavy with these texts, many of them actually written on cellphones for a cellphone reading audience.

    IDK MY BFF JILL is apparently the new Shakespeare.

  • cellphone novels (Score:5, Funny)

    by H0D_G ( 894033 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @05:49AM (#22115874)
    2 b or not 2 b tht is th ?

    • Re:cellphone novels (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ArwynH ( 883499 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @06:24AM (#22115954)

      The thing is, Japanese is far easier to enter on a keypad phone than English, meaning short-cuts like you see in English are not required. In fact due to the predictive text software, using weird language slows down typing speeds. Predictive text software also works a lot better with Japanese than it does with English. Well used phrases and sentences can be reduced to just a few key-presses and the average word, around 3-7 key presses (~2 characters). The result is the ability to write a 30-50 character reply email, with decent grammar within 1 minute or so.

      BTW that 25yrs age limit is way off-mark. The youngsters maybe faster than the rest of us, but everyone uses smiles, as well as a selection of graphical images available with the phone. I've even got them from my mother-in-law, who is way past the official retirement age.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Toam ( 1134401 )
        My boss using "u" and "2" and such as words when she emails me. It really shits me.

      • Re:cellphone novels (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:02AM (#22116062)

        The thing is, Japanese is far easier to enter on a keypad phone than English,

        I don't think its really any easier, just that Japanese have to use "predictive text" type input methods on computers too, so its the same interface for them, just with fewer keys. For English speakers, its a whole different way of inputting, that many people still can't get their heads around. The fastest English txters I know turn off predictive text, because they think it slows them down, I think in reality it is just that they can't change their mindset from typing everything out manually to letting a dictionary do the work.

        • Cellphones in Japan are a far stronger presence in the culture too, sending a text message is considered more normal than calling.
          • That's funny, when I went to Japan everyone called much more frequently then they texted. In my experience in Japan (which included staying with a Japanese family for a week and as I was going with a school there was a Japenese teenager I spent a fair amount of time with in that week) texting happens much less frequently then in Australia.
            • I think that's because Australia (and NZ, where I am now after being in Brisbane for a wee while) is even further down the text end of the call->text continuum. As far as I've noticed, Americans seem to be very averse to text messaging. Japanese probably far more text friendly, but not as high ratio as we Australasians.
              • i live in australia and the reason why texting is more popular here is because the mobile phone rates are outrageous. i don't know what the true story is but i've heard that it costs less to roll out mobile phone networks than wired ones, yet the mobile nets cost way more than any difference i could see as being reasonable. it's just starting to get better now, but the stupid phone carriers don't realise they'd sell it just as well by dropping the per-minute rate rather than having these complicated stupid
              • Huh, well that explains that then. I always figured Australia and America were pretty similar in stuff like that.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by hitmark ( 640295 )
                well that depends, the short sms of gsm networks never really took of in usa until recently iirc. instead one got stuff like push email.

                but then it could have something to do with pricing. from what i understand, payment plans in usa makes you pay for both sendt and recieved text messages, is it similar in australia? and how easy is it for text messages to pass between operator networks?

                also, i have gotten the impression that voice mail (or basically a kind of answering machine, with messages stored at the

                • A study on the effect of service pricing on the communication habits of different countries could be very interesting. It does make you wonder if it really should just be left up to capitalism to decide, if it's going to have such far-reaching effects. It's probably the best mechanism we have though.

                  payment plans in usa makes you pay for both sendt and recieved text messages, is it similar in australia?

                  It's generally free to receive calls, text and multimedia messages in Australia. I don't think I've ever seen any plans from any operator that work differently, so it might actually be required by law that re

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by hitmark ( 640295 )
                    hmm, just checked tmobile (at&t and sprint wanted zip code just to show any kind of plan, and im european not american) and they do not even talk about text messages of any kind within the basic plans (except a small notice under optionals). one have to dig into their additional services, and then the way its written confirms to me that one pay for both sent and received messages.

                    in comparison, voicemail is included with all their plans by the looks of it.

                    no wonder apple made a big fuzz about visual voi
                • It is pricing in the US. For a while, you couldn't even send text messages with some carriers. The method was to load up the web browser and send an email, with all the exorbitant data-fees inherent in that transaction.

                  It's gotten a little better now, but it's still stupidly expensive, especially considering the far greater data-capacity of text over voice. Many providers charge an extra $0.25 per message unless you sign up for an "unlimited text" add-on for about $10/mo. And they charge that whether yo

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by hitmark ( 640295 )
                    still, voice have a bit of benefit over text at times. for one thing, we can talk and do other stuff at the same time (more or less, see driving and talking issues). so its not like text messages is the best solution, always.

                    hell, if you need a reply to some question NOW! there is only one option if you cant ask the person face to face, call!

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Rakshasa Taisab ( 244699 )
          As someone who actually uses Japanese predictive text type input on both PC and phones, I'd say it is much easier than english.

          The thing about japanese, is that you can represent much more information in a compact way and it is easier to predict what kind of words/structure come next. If I'd like to say "I don't want to go to a maid cafe today.", it would be written as "kyou MEIDOKAFUe ni ikitakunai".

          The first word you'll get immediately by typing in the "ki" kana, since "ki" in the start of a sentence is v

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jrumney ( 197329 )
            English has common words too, so I don't see how Japanese has an advantage here. The alphabet is about half the size (compared with kana), so Japanese's shorter average word length is at the expense of more keystrokes to get at many of the letters. Also English predictive text software requires one keypress for each letter, the way you describe it, there is no completion for kana, so you need to press each key up to 5 times, and wait for the timeout when typing words like tachitai.
            • The difference is, you rapidly click _one_ or possibly two keys multiple times, instead of multiple keys ones or twice. Should be obvious what is faster and easier to get used to, especially when it decides to predict quite long combinations after inputing just one kana.

              And there is no need for a timeout for inputing "tachitai", what kind of half-assed phone have you been trying out?... And if i really like telling people "I want to stand" a lot, it will be in my list of predictions for "ta" after one time

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jrumney ( 197329 )

                And there is no need for a timeout for inputing "tachitai"
                So I hit the ta/chi/tsu/te/to key 4 times. What does the phone give me the choice of? Words starting with te? Words starting with tachita? Both?
                • Tried it on my Toshiba 904. I hit "ta", get a prediction list. Pick "tachi", hit "ta" then "i". Why hit that key 4 times? "i" is on the 2 key anyways.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by jrumney ( 197329 )
                    So how many key presses (counting autorepeat as one press, since it takes at least as much time as a key press) did it take to type those 4 characters? Using predictive text on an English language phone, you don't worry about the predictions until the whole word is displayed, since it is quicker just to keep typing than to choose partial completions all the time like that. That it is easier to choose predictions earlier in Japanese does not surprise me, but it doesn't support the notion that Japanese is eas
                    • Total of 6 keypresses ("ta", down, right, click, "ta", "i")

                      It's hard the first time because Japanese predictive typing learns your word usage and patterns of texting. So after you do that a few times, you'll be able to hit "ta" just once and get "tachitai". Quite a bit easier than English T9 (I can hit "ha" and get "Ayumi Hamasaki"- not possible with T9).

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by jrumney ( 197329 )

                      Quite a bit easier than English T9 (I can hit "ha" and get "Ayumi Hamasaki"- not possible with T9).

                      I presume you mean "HamasakiAyumi". It certainly is possible with the current implementation of T9.

                    • You're right. I wish T9 was capable of learning too- giving different word possibilities different priorities depending on what words you like to use and how often or in what context.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by jrumney ( 197329 )
                      It does that too, at least in the Sony Ericsson K850i.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by umghhh ( 965931 )
          no it does not. The reality is that it depends on your vocabulary and that in your machine (whether pc or ipod is irrelevant). In majority of cases it does not work for me at all. On top of it there is also this: I txt in three different languages and switching the bloody thing all the time is just bloody annoying.
          Maybe it means that Japanese youngsters are more and more hmmmm simple? Or maybe they use more advanced software than we do (something that I actually sometimes think is true - after all their toi
        • No, it comes down to character sets. The Japanese enter kana on their phones and then turn them in to kanji. Kana are arranged in a two-dimensional alphabet, where each symbol represents a compound of a consonant and a vowel. This maps to a mobile phone keypad a lot better than roman letters since you can use one key for each consonant sound and the number of hits for the vowel sounds. Once they have done this, they transform short sequences of kana into kanji in the same way that they do on computers,

      • Re:cellphone novels (Score:5, Informative)

        by wrook ( 134116 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:13AM (#22116090) Homepage
        Ya, the first time I used Japanese predictive text entry I was amazed. My Japanese is pretty bad, but I actually find it *much* easier to write text messages in Japanese than English. Now, I only text to my Japanese reading friends and directly phone English speaking ones. I hate English texting.

        To give you an idea of what it's like to text in Japanese using predictive text entry, here's a kind of walk through the process.

        First you type a character. Each character in Japanese is a phoneme/syllable (called a mora). The phone gives you a list of about 15 words that might fit. It's really amazing how often those fifteen words are right. Even if they aren't, by the next character, you almost always have the word.

        Then the phone gives you a list of particles/sentence fragments. Almost every word in Japanese is followed by a particle - a single character word that indicates the grammatical function of the previous word. But since there aren't that many particles. they usually have room to give you a couple of common sentence fragments that could also fit in that context where you were typing; usually common grammatical constructions. You choose the one you want.

        Then you type a character for a word again. You keep doing this until you get to a verb (usually at the end). At that point the software give you a choice of "okurigana" which will allow you to choose the inflection (sort of like a conjugation) and politeness level of the verb/sentence. And you are done.

        You can type whole sentences in only a few keystrokes. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if people can type faster on their cellphone than they can on their computer. It really is that easy and convenient.
    • That's not really how japanese messages look like. They have predictive and self-learning writing aid for completing words and kanjis, so they might just write "ka" and it will automatically give you a selection so you can instantly select "carburator".
    • it was the best of times :) it was the worst of times :(
  • Name something technologically possible to do that nobody would really want to do for any good reason, and chances are the Japanese have done it just to see what would happen. Oh, and to see if it could be used to sneak tentacle pr0n to middle school kids on their train home. The internet is for porn, after all.

    Well, that and Slashdot.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Internet is also for subtle racism as well, apparently.
  • That's interesting, and very odd. I've always found the number keyboard horribly slow and inefficient. If I had to write an entire novel with one of those I think I would feel much the same way about my thumbs as Ringo Starr did at the end of Helter Skelter! I am a college student and I use my cell phone quite often, but I usually call instead of texting. It's just not the same as a nice qwerty or dvorak with mechanical switches...
  • When I first looked at this, I was trying to figure out how one goes about composting Novell on a cell phone.

    • When I first looked at this, I was trying to figure out how one goes about composting Novell on a cell phone.
      I wouldn't have thought that possible. Have they released the latest versions of Netware and SuSE Linux on biodegradable DVDs, or were you suggesting an unusual alternative to burial for deceased Novell employees?

      (Sorry, couldn't contrive the mobile phone into this lame reply).

  • Not difficult with the right equipment (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @06:28AM (#22115962) Homepage
    I suppose that writing a novel on a cellphone might not be so difficult when your cellphone is a 3D mouse. [slashdot.org]

  • Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rie Beam ( 632299 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:03AM (#22116068) Journal
    I guess my only real question is, are any of these novels any good? Or are they appealing just because of the gimmick used to compose them?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)

      by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:42AM (#22116182)
      I guess my only real question is, are any of these novels any good? Or are they appealing just because of the gimmick used to compose them?

      From what I hear they're awful. A lot are written by high school students, according to my coworker, and he personally found them rather stupid and boring. But he recommended them to me as a way to pick up contemporary spoken Japanese.

      That said it's not because they're composed on cellphones that makes them interesting - they originally were cellphone downloads, if I am not mistaken. So a lot of people downloaded them when they had nothing else to do and read them during down time. Plus I think they tend to probably appeal to the high school set (in regard to themes, style, etc).
      • From what I hear they're awful. A lot are written by high school students, according to my coworker, and he personally found them rather stupid and boring. But he recommended them to me as a way to pick up contemporary spoken Japanese. That said it's not because they're composed on cellphones that makes them interesting - they originally were cellphone downloads, if I am not mistaken. So a lot of people downloaded them when they had nothing else to do and read them during down time. Plus I think they tend

  • With Apologies to /. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rie Beam ( 632299 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:05AM (#22116074) Journal
    Composing with a cellphone? What a novel idea!

  • nuances (Score:3, Funny)

    by Threni ( 635302 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:12AM (#22116082)
    > They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose
    > nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25.'"

    Or with an IQ over 25. Nuances? How is a smiley a nuance?

    I fell in love. I felt like this :) But then Juliet died. This made me feel like this :(

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 )
      Wow, who pissed in your cheerios today grandpa?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mangu ( 126918 )

      How is a smiley a nuance?

      Let me guess: you are over 25, right?

    • How is a smiley a nuance?

      A smiley denotes the subtle emotional difference between "I'm pissed at my parents and The Man and I'm horny" and "I'm pissed at my parents and The Man and I'm horny but your MyFace page rocks, dude." Do you pick up on the nuance now? You might not at first, that's how subtle it is.

      * * * * *

      Oh, squidbeaks!

  • I suddenly felt the urge to hug a librarian.

  • actually came up at work last week (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Sunday January 20, 2008 @07:40AM (#22116174)
    Keitai shousetsu, or mobile/cellphone novels are interesting. I was actually talking about them at work last week since one of my co-workers recommended them for picking up the nuance on contemporary spoken Japanese to me. He did mention however, that a lot of the authors were high school girls, and so he personally found the novels boring. I ended up doing an amazon search on published versions of the novels and checking the library, both of which turned up several books.

    The books aren't brilliant works of art by any stretch of the imagination, from what I've gathered, but are mostly for people to read on their phones when there is nothing else going on (train rides, etc.). But like my coworker said they are probably a brilliant way to pick up contemporary Japanese; the writing style is that of young people today and the kanji used are a lot less (because these are high school kids not Akutagawa).
  • Recieved 4:34am 01/20/08:

    for the love of god and all that is holy, stop texting me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Recieved 4:34am 01/20/08
      What is even more amazing is that your phone has discovered at least 8 months I wasn't aware of.
  • Japanese phones have a quite advanced text entry system. It's similar to English ones, where the phone predicts entries based on several possibilities for the keystrokes entered, but Japanese phones (by necessity) take it to another level. Words, phrases and complete sentences can all be predicted, as well as complex emoticons an Shift-JIS art.

    It would be interesting to see how this affects a novel written on a phone. Would there be more set phrases due to prediction? Fewer kanji (complex characters)? Proba
  • "The boom appeared to have been fueled by a development having nothing to do with culture or novels but by cellphone companies' decision to offer unlimited transmission of packet data, like text-messaging, as part of flat monthly rates."

    I wish the companies involved would get reasonable and do that in the US. I have a good Yahoo! chat client on my phone and I never use it due to the ridiculous charges.

    All I hope for now is that OpenMoko finally takes off and I'm actually allowed to use it for it's intended
  • I think it's all about that hugely long commute our Japanese friends endure. It's admirable that they can get some art/literature out of that wasted time... but it's still inhuman to make people sit on trains or drive for hours a day... anywhere.

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