世論 What Japan Thinks

Since I started running an ad blocker (Ad Muncher), I don’t see any advertisements in search results. However, the use of such software was not investigated in this recent survey published on japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into the topic of internet advertising. This is the first in a regular (monthly, presumably) series.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of November 2008 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sampe were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 27.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that this report concentrated on search results advertising, but the full survey covered many more kinds of internet advertising.

As you might have noticed, I’ve started with contextual advertisements in my RSS feed. Perhaps next month’s survey might cover them, but given the low figures for RSS usage, I don’t hold out much hope!
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I remember last time I was looking for an electronic book survey two came along at once, and this time too I have seen a couple in quick succession, so I’ll again double them up. Both surveys were reported on by japan.internet.com, and the first was on electronic books and conducted by iBridge Research Plus, and the second on book purchasing online and conducted by Marsh Inc.

Demographics

For the iBridge survey, between the 30th of October and the 1st of November 2008 300 members of the iBridge monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.3% of the sample were female, 16.0% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or older. For the Marsh survey, between the 31st of October and the 4th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% 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.

In Q2 from iBridge, 青空文庫, Aozora Bunko, Blue Sky Library, is a great place to find stuff to read, although the formatting could do with some work to be more friendly to modern browsers that can display readings of kanji over the characters rather than inline after them. However, this is a list of viewers for Aozora Bunko. The last book I read from there was Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is a nice short story for intermediate-level students. I also don’t understand why they restricted the question to PC users, since as can be seen from the viewer page, there are suitable readers for almost everything including an iPhone. Do any of my iPhone using readers want to do a road test of these packages?
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Although almost all mobile phones can connect to the internet, and although most, if not all, providers offer free contract maintenance pages accessible directly from one’s mobile, the traditional offline methods are still most used, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com on mobile phone use.

Demographics

Between the 30th of October and the 2nd of November 2008 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.6% aged sixty or older.

I’ve recently started using docomo’s my docomo site (no English version) for almost daily bill checking now, as I’m trying to find out if their pake-hodai double plan is actually cheaper for me, as I suspect it isn’t as I use barely 1,000 yen’s worth of packets, but as part of my basic plan I get 1,000 yen’s worth of free packets, so I think I’d have to double my usage to get my money’s worth. I’ll know at the end of the month.

I also used docomo’s billing plan diagnostic service, but it was a really unfriendly service and did not link directly to my own bill, so rather than it using my last six months-worth of data, for instance, I had to retype all the data, and because it was done as some sort of AJAX/Flash hack, the browser back button didn’t work so I couldn’t easily try out different scenarios. Checking it again today it won’t let me use Opera 9.6 even though it says only Opera 8.5 and below are not good enough, and it recommends the just far too buggy Internet Explorer 6.0 instead.
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I’ve covered similar surveys to this one in the past, which found an unbelievably high three in ten claimed to currently own or have owned a domain (I’ve just now double-checked the source, and my translation is accurate), but this time goo Research found a much more acceptable figure in this survey on one’s own home page, as reported by japan.internet.com.

Research results

Over the 22nd and 23rd of October 2008 1,090 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 12.0% in their sixties.

Even though .jp is the most popular domain name below, according to GoDaddy it costs $99 per year to register one, but for some reason whatjapanthinks.jp seems to be not for sale, although I cannot find any information why, as whois lookups are failing!

As I said on the previous survey, I think there is a degree of confusion in thinking that http://whatjapanthinks.blogspot.com/ is actually a top-level domain.
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This is quite a surprising set of results for me, but perhaps one factor is a relative reluctance to using credit cards online, although I would have thought banks would be more of a worry? Have a look at these results published on japan.internet.com from a survey conducted by Marsh Inc into online banking.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 28th of October 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% were 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.

I’ve always meant to look into online banking – actually, all my UK money is in a bank that is online (talking of HSBC, they finally opened branches in Japan, but the one in Kobe, at least, is after the top end, people with 10 million yen or more to invest – in Japan, but never quite got round to it. I once checked my SMBC balance online, but that’s the extent of it!
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Having just got my gold status with Flying Blue and enough points banked for business class to Europe and back – that’s a really poor introduction and sounds just like the boasting that it is! Anyway, today’s survey is from MyVoice, looking at usage of airline mileage services.

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2008 14,650 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I think KLM are a very good airline, but their Flying Blue partner Air France were a bit iffy the one time I flew cattle class with them, but the main drawback with them is that their trans-Pacific partner is NorthWest. They charge $5 for a drink in economy, yet when I got to my destination in Boston last month I could get a pint of fresh draft at a rather posh hotel for just $4.50. They did upgrade me to business class on the way back, however, which was nice.

I’ve twice used saved ANA points; the first was on magnet pillows – the wife bought them! Next was on a pair of his and her watches that have performed rather well, considering.
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I know yesterday was Silly Sunday, but I’ve had this survey sitting on my hard disk for ages, so I thought I’d just get this look at why people think they can’t get promotion, conducted as usual by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

None of the answers were “Because I spend all my time filling (or translating for that matter!) these stupid surveys”, however.

I was also rather free with my translation of answer 2.
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Previous surveys have shown that Yahoo! is the top search engine (just) and the top start page, but what else do people use there? This survey reported on japan.internet.com and conducted by another new-to-me research company, Point On, and looked at the topic of Yahoo! JAPAN service awareness.

Demographics

On the 16th of October 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a web-based (mobile or PC?) survey.The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

The only service I use on either English or Japanese Yahoo! is their Japanese train route finding service. I have once or twice in the past used their greeting cards, but I found that service dissatisfying.

Note that I’ve linked through to all the services mentioned, in Japanese of course.
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With the Winny file sharing program being the main vector for data loss (that we hear of, anyway) in Japan, what about another way, through careless use of removable media at work? This was the topic of a recent survey by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of September 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed an internet-based private questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 by age split between those in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and aged sixty or older.

Company confidentiality prevents me talking about any data loss issues that may or may not have happened, but we have recently introduced draconian policies for handling writable media that has resulted in us throwing out almost everything from floppy disks to memory sticks as part of a media traceability scheme. The biggest bummer personally is that I am no longer allowed to take my mobile phone into my office (I work in a high-security level area) so I do get a bit lonely during the day.
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Ahh, I could write pages and pages on this topic, but as I like getting paid every month I’d better keep quiet and just stick to the facts in this survey from Marsh Inc that was reported on by japan.internet.com on the subject of corporate information leaks. For reference, just last week I looked at leaks from the home environment.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 8th of September 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group who used PCs completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 between those in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixty or older.

We have some new rules in our office that have been introduced over the last couple of weeks, which I do recognise will increase data security and reduce the risk of accidental leaks, but… I can’t really qualify that “but” without risking falling foul of said data security rules! Ah well, I’ll have a fun team meeting tomorrow where I plan to point out an issue or two and generally play at awkward buggers.

In Q2, I suspect one can read “can’t answer” as “yes”! Indeed, the sample size for Q2SQ indicates that the “can’t answer” people did regardless.
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