世論 What Japan Thinks

With the impending IPO of mixi (related here by Gen Kanai), at an initial offer price of just over a million yen, or nearly £5000, per share, it may be timely to have a look at a report on japan.internet.com of goo Research’s second regular look into Social Networking Services, or SNS. 1,090 members of their internet monitor group responded to the survey; 55.8% were female, 1.6% in their teens, 22.1% in their twenties, 39.2% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

Last time I published an SNS survey I asked for an invite; I did get a couple of offers, but I’ve still not had time to actually take up any of them! It would be nice to have an account just for the sake of being able to say I do have one, and also as I do get the occasional hit from mixi that I cannot view without an account…

Q1: Do you use Social Networking Services (SNS)? (Sample size=1,090)

Currently using an SNS	23.9%
Used to use SNSs but don’t any longer	5.4%
Never used one	44.0%
Don’t know what they are	26.7%

Q2: Do you have the impression that SNSs are in vogue these days? (Sample size=799, those who know about SNSs)

Quite a bit	22.0%
A little	42.8%
Not very much	29.0%
Not at all	6.1%

Looking at the overall 1,090 sample, this means that just under half (47.5%) of people think that SNSs are in vogue to some extent these days.

Q3: In the SNS you mostly use, how many friends do you have? (Sample size=260, those currently using SNSs)

	Votes	Percentage
Less than 5 people	88	33.8%
5 to 9 people	60	23.1%
10 to 14 people	31	11.9%
15 to 19 people	18	6.9%
20 to 29 people	19	7.3%
30 to 49 people	24	9.2%
50 to 69 people	10	3.8%
70 to 99 people	5	1.9%
100 to 149 people	3	1.2%
150 to 199 people	2	0.8%
200 to 299 people	0	0.0%
300 to 499 people	0	0.0%
500 or more people	0	0.0%

Furthermore, it was also asked to how many people had one sent an invitation to join an SNS. The top answer was no-one at 36.5%; next was one person at 19.6%; five or more at 16.9%; then two people at 14.2%. That leaves 12.8% having invited three or four people. That means 43.9% invite at least another two, so no wonder the number of SNS accounts has exploded. Note that I believe the number is of invitations sent, not accepted.

Finally, the 59 users who were ex-users of SNSs were asked why they quit. The top reason, given by 19 people, was that they are actually just infrequent users who don’t log in much. Next, 12 people were too busy to have free time to use them; 11 people felt worries about whether their personal privacy was being protected or not. 6 people just lost interest, and the remaining 12 had various other unlisted reasons for quitting.