世論 What Japan Thinks

Sometimes I present surveys that are difficult to believe, and this is one of these cases, a look at software licences by goo Research and rported on by japan.internet.com, where almost one in three who are aware of licences and have installed software in the last year claimed to usually or always read the accompanying licence!

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of October 2010 1,093 members of the goo Research online monitor goup completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I am surprised that so many do – it’s just one more click-through for me. Only if I am downloading software that tries to force a spammy toolbar install do I check the licence to see if it mentioned anything about data collection.
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Here’s an interesting and lengthy look by iShare at single guys with salaries of over 10 million yen, a rather long-winded title that looks much better and shorter in Japanese. There will be a follow-up later this week or next on single guys with over 10 million yen in the bank!

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of September 2010 1,150 single female members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service in full-time employement completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.7% of the sample were in their twenties, 39.1% in their thirties, and 39.1% in their forties.

At one point I was really close to 10 million yen a year, but then the economy collapsed about four years ago and my employer cut their bonus payments and got tighter regarding benefits.

Looking down the list, I don’t think I fit any of the highest voted images for any of the questions!
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Here’s an interesting survey from goo Ranking, looking at what people think that compared to overseas is far too expensive in Japan.

Demographics

Over the 23rd and 24th of August 2010 1,127 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.3% of the sample were female, 11.7% in their teens, 16.5% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 8.7% 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.

With the recent appreciation in the yen, prices have got a bit closer, but looking at the list, number 1 is fair enough for city property, although land in the countryside is often ridiculously cheap. Homes are perhaps comparable in price, but certainly not comparable in terms of floor space or build quality! Pizzas are stupidly expensive, but I’m not really sure about US university fees, although compared to many places in Europe they are, as further education costs are heavily regulated or even non-existent. An hour on Japanese motorways costs about the same as a week-long or more carte for German, Swiss or Austrian motorways, but petrol is similar in price to Europe. Movies are expensive, although the concessions are cheaper and more importantly there’s no-one talking on phones, shining laser pointers or otherwise disrupting movies in Japan. My monthly minutes (30 minutes) for my mobile is about the same price as a plan with 500 minutes or more in the UK, and it costs me close to 100 yen to load just the specially-designed Japanese mobile-friendly home page on Twitter! Foreign brands are heavily marked-up, but personal tax (income and sales tax) in Japan is low, although the national insurance component has been slowly creeping up as of late.

The others I disagree with are tropical fruits – all fruits are expensive, and alcohol. The average pint in the pub or carry-out can of mainstream beer is more expensive that the west, but there’s always the all-you-can-drink option, and in supermarkets the own-brands of firewater – chu-hai fruity alcopops, gut-rot whisky and the two litre sake bottles – have a pretty good price/performance ratio.

Oh, and everyone seems to have forgotton rice, which is kept expensive by the government to keep small farmers farming.
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A recent survey from Media Interactive (iResearch) and reported on by japan.internet.com took a look at the matter of servers, with this particular article focusing on the virtualisation aspect. I’ll apologise in advance for the technical nature of this, but it’s something I’m interested in, and it’s one aspect of Cloud Computing, another buzzword that does the rounds a lot without many people particularly knowing what it actually means.

Demographics

On the 27th of August 2010 300 members of the Media Interactive monitor group who worked in organisations and has the power of approval for server purchases completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The respondents were between 20 and 79 years old, but no further demographic information was given.

Cloud Computing is one of these terms with different meaning for different people. My definition is using resources from a pool of resources, with the usage expanding and contracting on demand, and charging being based on the usage. On which device, or how many devices, or who else is sharing the device is unimportant, just that the resources are available somewhere.
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Here’s a survey from goo Reseach with an interesting focus, terminals in western Japan, in particular those in Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 13th of August 2010 1,625 members of the goo Research monitor panel who lived either within 20 kilometres of the centre of Osaka, in Hiroshima City, or Fukuoka City completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 1,087 were from Osaka, 273 from Hiroshima, and 265 from Fukuoka, and in total 53.4% were female, 0.7% in their teens, 12.9% in their twenties, 34.2% in their thirties, 31.0% in their forties, and 21.2% aged fifty or older.

Depsite going to the Osaka area to shop once a month or so, the number of Asian tourists does not really register on me, perhaps because it’s more the Westerners that catch my eye!
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I can’t go anywhere in Europe or America without bumping into a Fairtrade product, usually coffee or tea, but as this recent survey from goo Research into Fairtrade found that even awareness of the system was pretty thin on the ground.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of August 2010 2,350 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and similarly the age groups were evenly split with 20.0% in each of the age bands from twenties to the over-sixties.

I did reference Fairtrade once before, and I can remember somewhere seeing a Fairtrade logo on perhaps a chocolate product; certainly not a speciality brand nor a eco-brand, just a pretty normal mass-market product.
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The Cabinet Office Japan recently took a look at the international movement of workers, which for this survey was specifically Japanese wanting to work overseas and foreigners coming to Japan.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of July 2010 3,000 people randomly selected from resident registration information were approached for face-to-face interviews. Of the 3,000, 1,913 people, or 63.8% were available and answered the questions. 54.0% of the sample were female, 8.6% in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 17.8% in their forties, 18.6% in their fifties, 19.8% in their sixties, and 19.2% aged 70 or older. There were a few other demographic questions, but they were sufficiently interesting to be presented in distinct tables below.

I wonder if the last two questions about foreign workers are in any way related to this article from Ampontan, in particular this quote from Naoto Kan, who is Prime Minister at the time of writing, but may not be by the time you read this, in an interview responding to a question on job creation:

The first is to create hiring by such means as long-term care, for which there is long-term, latent demand, and relaxing the issuance of visas to foreigners.

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And they’re also invisible to many of you lot, judging by my data! I mention this as today’s survey is from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into internet advertisements, with this report focusing on the contextual kind.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of August 2010 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 17.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 26.9% aged fifty or older.

I personally think that most the people who say they haven’t see any contextual adverts in blogs on rews stories are mistaken – many popular news sites run adverts not just in the sidebars, but also have blocks right in the middle of stories, and I feel confident in saying that far less than 30% of the sample are running ad blockers.
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A recent very detailed survey from goo Research, in conjuction with social media consultants Looops Communications, took a look at corporate Twitter accounts.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of July 2010 315 members of the goo Research online monitor group who used a corporate Twitter account as part of their job completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Sex and age demographics were not reported as they were not particularly significant; instead company size and industry was reported. 32.1% worked in companies of under 10 employees, 27.0% between 10 and 99 employees, 21.0% between 100 and 999 employees, 19.0% with 1,000 or more employees, and 1.0% just didn’t know. 22.9% were in manufacturing, 10.2% in distribution or small shops, 5.4% in finance, 55.9% in service industries, and 5.7% other.

Note that although the sample is small, all the respondents were corporate Tweeters, so the accuracy of the data should be high.

My employer just released a new corporate social media hub site, combining Twitter and YouTube feeds. There might also be a blog, but I’ll be surprised if it is anything other than just a press release archive. I don’t think there’s an active mixi account, and there’s certainly no Facebook account for the Japanese side.
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A recent survey from iShare into relationships with one’s boss revealed some interesting facets of the worker-boss relationship in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of July 2010 427 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 31.1% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.

I do regularly but not frequently talk to my boss about career advancement, but I’ve never had a decent answer from him, thus I’d be in the 27.4% in Q1SQ4. I’ve only had one direct boss that I can say I respected totally; my employer seems to breed large number of middle management who do not want to rock the boat and would prefer to stay in the office until all hours producing low-value but high-volume reports rather than asking why the information is needed.
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