ColumnColumn

[Thailand] New entertainment popular among digital natives / "Joylad," a chat-style novel application for LINE

  • Release date: Apr 15, 2019
  • 4494 Views

images

Joylada, a free service for novels enjoyed on the LINE chat screen

Joylada, a novel posting app provided by Thai e-bookstore Ookbee, is gaining popularity among students who love reading. The service was launched in July 2017. In about a year, there have been 2 million users/month and 450,000 novel posters (as of October 2018)
Joylada features a "chat-style novel" in which the story progresses as you follow the characters' LINE chat screens. Each time you tap the screen, the next line will be displayed, giving you the realistic feeling of peeking into an actual chat. The majority of users are female students between the ages of 13 and 24, and the number of taps exceeds one billion per day, especially during the long school vacations. A horror novel posted in December 2018, The Flower of Lartree (Dorkmay Lartree) is a chat novel about a young man in his 20s who tries to uncover the identity of a curse as his college friends die one after another mysteriously in the order of a list. It is a horror story that Thai people love, and it includes elements of romance between men, and its popularity spread through SNS. The novels that became popular on the site were bound and published.

images

Gained popularity for its easy-to-read format, even among young people who are not good at reading long sentences.

According to the Electronic Transactions Development Authority of Thailand (ETDA), young people in their teens to early 30s spend more than 10 hours per day on the Internet, with more than 3 hours of this time spent on SNS.
Ookbee has introduced the chat format so that users can easily post and read novels, as young people nowadays are usually familiar with chatting on LINE and other services, but are not good at reading and writing long sentences.

In the beginning, fictional stories featuring real Korean idols became a hot topic among K-pop fans, and Joylada's appeal spread through Twitter. 70-80% of the fictional stories are about K-pop idols, and horror novels are also popular.
It is free for anyone to read. The VIP fee for ad-free use is 45 baht (about 135 yen) per month. In addition, Joylada is not limited to Thailand, but is also expanding into Indonesia and Malaysia.

This article is co-authored by TNC Lifestyle Researcher (http://lifestyle.tenace.co.jp/) and INTAGE's Global Researcher.

  • TNCアジアトレンドラボ

    Author profile
    TNC ASIA Trend Lab

    TNC ASIA Trend Lab is an information organization run by TNC Inc. that researches and shares trends in Asia. It supports corporate marketing activities by finding insights from trends rooted in the lifestyles and habits of local consumers. http://lifestyle.tenace.co.jp/

  • Intage Inc

    Editor profile
    インテージ

    ＊＊＊

Reproducing and quotation
  • The copyright of this report/column is held by Intage Inc. or the company to which the author belongs. Please confirm the following prohibitions and cautions, and specify the source when reproducing or quoting.
    Example:
    "Source: Intage's Research Report "(Report title) (issued on DD/MM/YYYY)"
    "Source: Global Market Surfer, article published on DD/MM/YYYY"
  • Prohibiton:
    • Modification of part or all of the contents
    • Sale or publication of part or all of the contents
    • Use that is offensive to public order and morals or that leads to illegal activities
    • Reprpducing or quotation for the purpose of advertising or sales promotion of companies, products, or services.
  • Other cautions:
    • We are not responsible for any trouble, loss or damage caused by the use of this report.
    • These terms of use do not restrict the use of quotations, etc., which are permitted under the Copyright Act.
  • If you have any questions about reprinting or quotation, please contact us from here