世論 What Japan Thinks

With a great deal of fuss regarding privacy in Japan related to Google’s Street View, resulting in them promising to reshoot everything but from a lower camera angle, this recent survey from iShare into Google Street View found that virtual walkthroughs of theme parks was a popular feature that should be expanded.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of May 2009 569 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.2% of the sample were male, 35.7% were in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, and 34.6% in their forties.

In May of this year Google announced a Street View Partner Program to allow private facilities such as theme parks and other tourist attractions to invite the Google Trike to pedal through the location. In Japan, Kyoto’s Kodaiji temple and Asahigawa Zoo in Hokkaido were among the first locations to sign up.

It was not reported in detail, but the most popular places people wanted to see photographed were Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.

Research results

Q1: Do you know about Google Street View? (Sample size=569)

Yes (to SQ)	86.3%
No	13.7%

Q1SQ: Have you used Google Street View? (Sample size=491)

Yes	77.4%
No	22.6%

Combining the two above, we get:

Q1+Q1SQ: Have you used Google Street View? (Sample size=569)

Yes	66.8%
No	19.5%
Don’t know what it is	13.7%

Men were slightly more aware and likely to have used it rather than women.

Q2: When using internet maps, which service do you use the most? (Sample size=569)

Google Maps	57.5%
Other mapping service	37.8%
Never used internet maps	4.7%

Q3: Given participation in the Google Street View Partner Program for a facility, would you like to view online before visiting the actual location? (Sample size=569)

Want to view	35.9%
Perhaps want to view	39.4%
Don’t want to view	24.8%