世論 What Japan Thinks

At the end of April, japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked into the usage of Social Bookmarking Services. They interviewed 1,069 people by means of an internet-based questionnaire. 43.2% of the sample was male, and the age breakdown was 2.6% in their teens, 21.6% in their twenties, 43.1% in their thirties, 24.4% in their forties, and 8.2% in their fifties.

I’ve used del.icio.us myself, but more as an attempted tool of promotion than as some sort of social affair. I get a very small amount of traffic (and in just one or two hits a day) from there and other services like furl and Technorati, although I do have a plan underway to get my own local tagging service up and running, perhaps this weekend.

Note that comparing figures with a survey last month on the state of RSS reader usage, although nearly four times as many people use RSS readers compared to social bookmarking services, round about a third of those interviewed in both surveys expressed a wish to use them in the future.

Q1: Do you know about “Social Bookmark Services”? (Sample size=1,069)

Currently or have used such a service	3.7%
Know what it is but not used such a service	9.8%
Just heard the term	14.0%
Never heard the term	72.4%

When asked what services the 40 users and ex-users had used, the top was はてなブックマーク, Hatena::Bookmark with 26 users, then EC ナビ人気ニュース, EC Navi Ninki News with 10 users, and finally del.icio.us and JoltMark with 5 users between them.

Q2: Do you think you want to use a “Social Bookmark Service”? (Sample size=1,069)

Want to use	32.9%
Don’t want to use	33.4%
Don’t know	33.7%

Some of the popular reasons given for wanting to use such as service was that they can be used from multiple PCs, it would become unnecessary to back up bookmarks, being able to find popular pages is good, one can learn about various opinions and ways of thinking, and one can share good sites with various people.

Q3: About how often do you add to your bookmarks (or favourites)? (Sample size=1,069)

Every day	13.0%
Two or three times a week	16.0%
Once a week	17.8%
Two or three times a month	22.1%
Once a month	17.6%
Two or three times every six months	9.3%
Almost never	4.2%