Convergence Culture hitting Japan

I know that the weekly writing should possibly stray away from the article, but I feel that this piece is rather important. Cultural convergence seems to peek out at me while reading it. The definition of a convergence culture is one culture in a form of contact or other interaction with another country. The two cultures at play here are the North American makers of the iPhone (Apple) and the entire Japanese consumer market. Apple is introducing a new product in the cell phone industry of Japan that is taking the market by storm, the iPhone. Like stated in the article, foreign developers passed up Japan for its "insularity". For those of you who don't know what insularity means, like myself, insularity means the state of being isolated or detached. With Apple introducing it's best selling cell phone product now in Japan, this cultural convergence is impacting the sales of application immensely.

For years the Japanese cell phone market has been ruled by high established cell phone companies that would easily dominate any newcomers. With the iPhone being established into the culture now, there is a sway in power.

Since the introduction of the iPhone into the Japanese cell phone market, application sales are sky rocketing. Games such as the best selling game app, 'Angry Birds', which cost consumers only $0.99 to purchase has had 27 million downloads. With the numbers of sales that apps are producing through smart phones, the advancement of new applications are soon to come. An analogy that seems to suit America would be that the U.S. is striking gold in this market looking for something new. Even Japanese developers are getting in on this new market. If you didn't read the article already, Japanese developers topped 3 billion application downloads globally in less than 18 months. Who would have thought that apps could have this big of a role in other cultures. It's definitely a topic that should be watched in the near future.