世論 What Japan Thinks

Every time a survey like this one from Marsh Inc into domains comes up, I comment on how the statistics must surely be wrong, or at the very least the question is framed badly.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of February 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Considering that I would presume that a prerequisite to owning a top-level domain is knowing in detail what exactly it is, 61 people know the details about domains and 73 people claim to have had one, that’s about 20% who just didn’t really know what their domain was. Thus, I have to conclude that “having a domain” includes “having a blog on a sub-domain”, not merely the stricter definition of “having purchased a top-level domain”, especially considering that .jp domains are considerably more expensive than the others.

I own a few .coms and a .net, I had a .biz, and I have a .org and a cunning plan…

Research results

Q1: Do you know what a domain is? (Sample size=300)

Know it well (to SQ1)	20.3%
Know a bit about it (to SQ1)	40.0%
Just heard of it (to SQ1)	35.3%
Never heard of it	4.3%

Q1SQ1: Do you have your own personal domain? (Sample size=287)

Yes (to SQ2)	19.9%
Used to have one	5.6%
Never had one	74.6%

Q1SQ2: What kind of top-level domains are/were they? (Sample size=73, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
.jp	55	75.3%
.com	23	31.5%
.net	4	5.5%
.org	3	4.1%
.info	3	4.1%
.biz	1	1.4%
Other	0	0.0%