世論 What Japan Thinks

In December, DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 5,000 people, 2,457 male, from their internet monitor group about their views on the top e-business news stories of 2005. The age demographics were 1.4% in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, 28.7% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 6.7% aged sixty or over.

I find it interesting that the women rated IT firms buying baseball teams more highly than the men, as baseball does tend to have a more male image. I personally would have rated spyware and phishing more highly, but I don’t the the subject has got as much coverage in the Japanese press as it gets in the west.

I don’t think I need a crystal ball to predict what the biggest story of 2006 will be.

Q: What was the one top e-business news story of 2005? (Sample size=5,000, free answer)

Story	Votes
Livedoor and Nippon Broadcasting battle	817
Rakuten and TBS battle	530
IT firms buying media firms and mergers & acquicisions	422
Blog	327
On-line share trading	320
Spyware, phishing and other net fraud	110
Personal information protection and leakage	71
IT firms and baseball teams	70
iPod, iTunes and PodCasting	70
Affiliates	56

Q: What was the one top e-business news story of 2005? (By sex, free answer)

Men N=2,457	Votes	Women N=2,543	Votes
Livedoor and Nippon Broadcasting battle	413	Livedoor and Nippon Broadcasting battle	404
Rakuten and TBS battle	272	Rakuten and TBS battle	258
IT firms buying media firms and mergers & acquicisions	236	IT firms buying media firms and mergers & acquicisions	186
On-line share trading	171	Blog	161
Blog	166	On-line share trading	149
Spyware, phishing and other net fraud	59	Spyware, phishing and other net fraud	51
iPod, iTunes and PodCasting	56	IT firms and baseball teams	41
Personal information protection and leakage	34	Personal information protection and leakage	37
IT firms and baseball teams	29	Affiliates	34
Net-based music and movie distribution	27	Net auction	29