世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com, in conjuction with goo Research, recently investigated the use of Social Networking Services, or SNS, in Japan. 1,087 members of the goo Research Monitors took part in the internet-based survey. 56.3% of the sample was female; 2.4% were in their teens, 22.9% in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, and 10.0% in their fifties. It may be instructive to compare the results here with those from an earlier survey of SNS that I translated in December.

総務省, soumushou, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, recently released figures that stated there were 7.16 million registered users of SNS (I’m not sure if people registered for two services are counted twice) at the end of March 2006; in the six months from September of 2005 the number of has increased by almost 80%! As well as users increasing, so are the services; in February Yahoo! opened up the beta version of Yahoo 360° and in March Rakuten introduced Rakuten Plaza Links.

Q1: Are you participating in a Social Networking Service (SNS)? (Sample size=1,087)

Currently participating (to Q2)	19.2%
Have participated, but now don’t	4.7%
Never participated	44.7%
Don’t know what SNS is	31.4%

These 209 people currently active in SNSs were asked how many they used; almost four in five (79.9%) use just the one, 13.9% use two, and 2.9% use three, and some people even participate in five or more. The most popular SNS by far was mixi with 171 people (81.8%) using it; GREE was next at a mere 16 people or 7.7%, Yahoo! 360° with 11 or 5.3%; livedoor Friend Park and Kinugasa managed just 8 users each, COLORS had 7, with others trailing further behind.

Q2: What features of an SNS do you use? (Sample size=209)

	Votes	Percentage
Read diaries or community bulletin boards, etc	183	87.6%
Write diaries or community bulletin boards, etc	142	67.9%
Check “Footsteps” (visitor log) etc	132	63.2%
Exchange messages	115	55.0%
Other	4	1.9%

When asked how many friends they had on the SNS, almost one in three reported up to five, 22.0% said they had six to ten friends, and 14.8% had 11 to 15, meaning around 70% of the users have 15 or less friends.

Q3: What points are lacking when you use an SNS? (Sample size=209)

	Votes	Percentage
Fine-grained settings for controlling public information	54	25.8%
Pictures, diary or mail, etc storage space	45	21.5%
Portal site-like information load	37	17.7%
Number of users	11	5.3%
Other	9	4.3%
Nothing in particular	103	49.3%