世論 What Japan Thinks

With 3D movies now becoming the norm, it seems, this detailed look at this subject of 3D movies by DIMSDRIVE Research reveals some interesting attitudes.

Demographics

Between the 20th of January and 4th of February 2010 8.596 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were male, 1.0% in their teens, 11.3% in their twenties, 32.9% in their thirties, 31.2% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 7.4% aged sixty or older.

I’ve now been to two 3D movies; first was Up, which would have been better in 2D, quite frankly, as I didn’t see what I was paying the extra 300 yen for, then it was Alice in Wonderland (note that this survey was conducted before the general release in Japan, and I’m surprised that peope claim to have seen it! Toy Story 3 similarly is still not out in Japan), which was a very good movie and was perhaps better in 3D, although the nose pain from the glasses makes me not really keen on going to see 3D movies if I can avoid it. For Alice, the only 2D English versions were either early morning or late at night, so 3D was unavoidable.
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A recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into recording television programs found the use of video tapes outnumbering Blu-ray players.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 23rd of May 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fities, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I watch more TV in real-time than recorded – weekdays is usually real-time, weekends is catching up with what I’ve missed.
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With the deadline for the digital terrestrial switchover getting ever closer – only 13 months until the 24th of July 2011 – rates of adoption are creeping up, according to this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into terrestrial digital television, the 14th time this regular survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 12th of May 2010 1,084 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

Coupled with the Eco Point system for rebates for buying digital televisions due to end in December of this year (it works out at about 20% off a Japanese brand 32″), surely the next couple of surveys will see the figure surpass 80%. I know I’m tempted to buy with my summer bonus.

As a cross-reference, I saw the government recently claiming that 83.8% of households were digital-ready, a figure that differs greatly from the numbers here. If you notice the wording, though, it implies that these households have at least one digital reception device, which would include One Seg mobile phones, but I hardly see them taking pride of place in one’s living room!

In Q2, I cannot really think why three people were satisfied with the copy protection on digital broadcasts. Perhaps the respondents has either worked on the specifications or were in the business of selling hacking software.
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Last year I barely saw any surveys regarding music consumption, but this year there seems to have been a decent number of them, with the latest offering being from goo Research via japan.internet.com looking at how people obtain music.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 14th of May 2010 1,088 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample were male, 17.7% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 15.6% in their forties, 15.3% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

The question Q1SQ1 is a bit difficult to interpret, especially the first answer that talks about using a specialised tool – I don’t think many of the commercial services offer free downloads in any significant quantity, so I wonder if the figure includes people unwittingly using P2P software?
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This survey into electronic book readers by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com found that the iPad seemed an attractive choice to many electronic book readers.

Demographics

On the 24th of May 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, 28.0% in their forties, 19.7% in their fifties, and 7.0% in their sixties.

There must have been a corresponding question to Q1SQ2 for Amazon’s Kindle, as although it wasn’t reported the text implied that many fewer people were interested in reading on a specialised device.

Despite good reviews of Sony’s e-readers, they don’t seem to be on sale in Japan for some reason and their Japanese web site stopped updating at the end of 2008, although if I were to hazard a guess it would be due to the difficulty in making a deal with the rather old-fashioned mindsets that seem to present in Japanese publishing houses.
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It’s been a couple of years since the last time I translated a survey into television versus internet, so I was interested to see how the numbers have changed according to this recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into computer and internet usage, but focusing on television-related issues.

Demographics

Between the 28th of April and the 7th of May 2010 (quite a long span!) 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 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.

The results seem to display a definite trend back to television, although the article does not attempt to ascribe a reason for this, although I feel for such a change to happen in just 7 or 8 months the only reason can be that their sampling methodology either is poor or has changed since the last survey; I don’t think it is a real change in behaviour.
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With the airwaves being saturated recently with adverts for DMM.COM, the very high number of people aware of services like DMM.COM in this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into movie viewing is not surprising at all.

Demographics

On the 6th of May 2010 1,114 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 16.1% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Recently my movie watching at home has been pretty close to zero due to a lack of time – I’m thinking we should cancel our cable subscription and just watch all the stacked-up DVDs that have been building up over the last few years. On the other hand I do go to a real cinema around once a month.
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Here’s a short but curiously interesting survey from iShare, looking at artistic talent, in particular being able to perform such a talent in front of others.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 7th of April 2010 497 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.9% of the sample were male, 32.2% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, and 35.6% in their forties.

I have no artistic talents, and am quite envious of those who have them. I’d like to learn to sing, and the wife keeps semi-suggesting it, but I’m totally and utterly tone deaf!
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This recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, was their fourth regular (once every two months) survey into keitai novels, with keitai being the shortened Japanese word for mobile phone, and keitai novels being novels designed to be read on mobile phones, featuring shorter sentences and episodic chapters, and I presume graphical devices like emoji.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 24th of March 2010 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16/3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve never even seen a keitai novel, so in the interests of research, please wait while I check Google.

The first hit is Wild Strawberry, and looking around the books seem to be mostly written in slang, in the loose style of emails of young women. Hmm, I don’t think I’ll be bothering.
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With Panasonic due to start selling their 3D Viera on the 23rd of April, this recent survey from goo Research was on television in general, but the short report on japan.internet.com focused on the timely 3D aspect.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of March 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

As a cross-reference, you might like to look at an earlier survey from iShare on the same subject.

I’m not interested in 3D television, myself. I did notice a couple of days ago in central Osaka the local cable company were promoting their upcoming 3D broadcasts, and there was quite a long queue in front of the demostration stand, but perhaps people were just lining up for whatever freebies they were handing out…
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