世論 What Japan Thinks

With Apple’s iPod touch being launched in Japan at the start of this month, October, (although the official Apple Store Japan web site seems to suggest there is a 7 to 10 day lead time for orders) japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into the iPod touch.

Demographics

On the 15th of October 2007 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.0% of the sample was male, 11.5% in their twenties, 34.5% in their thirties, 37.0% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

A recent survey suggested that 40% wanted to buy an iPod touch, but given the figures below, not many have yet. The exact reasons for this might make for an interesting topic at a later date. In addition, now over 71% want an iPod touch (curiously enough, a greater percentage than those who know of it, which makes me a bit suspicious of the accuracy of this report), although the previous survey asked if they want to buy, this one just asked if they wanted.
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RTFM – Read The Friendly (or substitute other words begining with F) Manual. I wonder if there is a slang expression in Japanese with a similar meaning? To find out whether or not RTFMing goes on in Japan, Cross Marketing Inc produced a report, with the highlights published by japan.internet.com, on the topic of paper manuals for personal computers.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of October 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male and female split, and 20.0% in each age band from teens to fifties.

As perhaps a cross-reference, I looked at this topic last year in relation to mobile phone manuals.

I don’t know why in Q1SQ2 they didn’t offer as one of the answers that it is quicker to look up the internet or an electronic manual, or even just phone the support line. I’d love to have seen data for both these actions
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Here’s another of these surveys that I find particularly interesting, looking at perhaps rather trivial matters, but giving answers that I hope one day may prove useful, although where exactly, I just don’t know! This time it was japan.internet.com reporting on a survey by goo Research into mobile phones in general, but in this report they chose to focus on dirty screens on said mobiles.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of October 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample was male, 17.5% in their teens, 19.8% in their twenties, 17.2% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.9% in their sixties.

This survey coincided with the release of a new range of mobile phone screen cleaning mascots from Strapya (very reasonable prices and shipping costs; help What Japan Thinks by buying your cuddly toys through the link above), so join the 10% or so of Japanese cell phone users with cute cleaners! I personally have a Monokuro Boo cubic pig cuddly cleaner on my phone, but I actually just wipe on my sleeve.
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The provision of public wireless internet is Japan is pretty terrible. I’ve personally only tried a few times, but either I got no signal or I couldn’t get my hardware configured correctly. One place I’m very surprised that it’s not installed is on the Shinkansen, the Bullet Train. Their latest N700 series now has laptop power plugs on most of the seats, but sadly they chose not to include either wired or wireless internet connections even though mobile phone service is supported on even the older models of trains. So, recently japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc (part of the same group that operates the wireless-free Shinkansens) into public wireless LANs.

Demographics

On the 20th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel who were employed in either the public or the private sector completed an internet-based questionnaire. 84.1% of the sample was male, 13.2% in their twenties, 35.3% in their thirties, 37.1% in their forties, 12.6% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

One other reason, perhaps, that there is not as strong a demand for wireless is that you can get high-speed mobile phone-based access from companies such as EMobile, with their offering of unlimited 3.6 Mbps at a fixed price of just 4,980 yen per month. I’m typing this up in a hotel in Los Angeles that has free wireless in all the rooms and all the public areas, yet when I stayed in a relatively posh hotel in central Osaka a couple of months ago I couldn’t get a signal at all, and there was no mention of wired or wireless service in the hotel information booklet.

Note that this survey covers services in all public areas from stations to hotels via restaurants and cafes. Deliberately leeching off a wide-open domestic router probably doesn’t count!
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This topic seemed a little dull when I first picked up this report to translate, but after a little web searching I found some rather interesting information related to a survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com on the topic of mobile phones, and on non-standard designs in particular.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 14th of September 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the group was male, 17.6% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 15.8% in their thirties, 17.1% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Did you know that four years ago NTT DoCoMo launched the WRISTOMO, a wristwatch-styled mobile phone? Or even more interestingly, SMS Technology Australia have just released this month a real wristwatch-sized mobile phone, the rather uninspiringly-named M500 with MP3, video, BlueTooth and Java all stuffed into a 60 gramme package.
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One thing one may notice after being around Japanese salarymen is that their tools of the trade, as it were, are much smaller than that of the average American business-person, but they still do pack quite a considerable punch and they are rather proud of the features of their home-grown models. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not the headline and the preceding sentence have anything to do with a recent survey conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight on the subject of notebook (laptop) computers and Japanese businessmen.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of August 2007 Yahoo! Japan Value Insight gathered the opinions of 16,526 members of their online monitor panel. All were male, and the sample had almost exactly 25% (plus or minus two people) in each of the age bands of twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. 14,037 of the sample, or 84.9%, went on domestic business trips at least once per month. This group was asked Q1. In addition, a smaller group of 2,000 businessmen registered with mpack, the mobile monitor group of Yahoo! Japan Value Insight, who went on business trips at least once a month carrying a notebook computer were asked the more detailed questions Q2 to Q8. This group was made up of 500 people in their twenties, 500 in their thirties, 500 in their forties, and 500 in their fifties. Note that business trip covers both day trips and overnight stays, or even just visiting another branch of the same company in the same city.

There’s a mass of fascinating data in this survey! For instance, Q1 on what people take with them on business trips; old guys prefer carrying a digital camera to a notebook computer; indeed why do almost three in ten take a digitial camera with them?

Although Panasonic loses out badly to Apple in the portable audio player battlefield, here they beat everyone in terms of sales and are only just edged out by the Mac in terms of user satisfaction.

Finally, I must add that I am another satisfied Let’s Note user.
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According to a recent survey on robots conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com, domestic robots are broadly welcomed, but there is strong reluctance towards letting robots help out with the softer skills.

Demographics

One the 4th of September 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor panel employed in the public and private sectors answered a private internet-based questionnaire. 77.3% of the sample was male, 12.7% in their twenties, 38.7% in their thirties, 33.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 0.9% in their sixties.

A Roomba might be nice around our living room to occassionally scoot around and pick up fluff and crumbs from under the sofa and the table, although I don’t really see it as a substitute for my weekly hoovering, just something that makes my job a bit easier on Sunday mornings. I don’t really see how a clothes washing robot could be effectively made; tasks like hanging out the washing, for instance, are rather intricate, and going around the house picking up dirty clothes is a nice image but impractical given the current state of the art in robotics.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into the subject of losing portable electronic devices.

Demographics

On the 23rd of August 2007 331 members of JR Tokai Express Research Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% were male, 17.5% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 32.6% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 3.6% in their sixties.

Last year I translated a similar survey on forgetting electronic items which might be useful as a cross reference. I’ve not lost anything more since the last questionnaire, although I nearly did leave my notebook computer in a restaurant only to get the staff return it to me as I was paying the bill.
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Here’s another look at cell phone One Seg, this time by goo Research as reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 31st of August and the 3rd of September 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% were male, 17.3% in their teens, 20.1% in their twenties, 17.0% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older.

I’ve posted a number of One Seg digital terrestrial television surveys recently, so I suppose there is not much terribly new here, but with more polls and more data points saying roughly the same thing, one can be more confident about the accuracy of the data.

An interesting extra fact from this report was that on the 16th of August 2007 au announced that they had made their 5 millionth contract for a One Seg-compatible phone.
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Recently I’ve been seeing more and more people watching One Seg television broadcasts (digital terrestrial television) on their cell phones, particularly in trains. Whether this apparent increase in popularity is due to more One Seg-ready phones being sold, or whether it is a function of people now feeling comfortable watching television on the train, I don’t really know. To learn more about what the average person thinks regarding this matter, MyVoice conducted a survey on this topic of mobile phone One Seg functions.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2007 12,404 members of the MyVoice online community successfully completed an online survey. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

As mentioned in the introduction, I see more people watching their phones, so I am beginning to want to do the same myself, not because I find Japanese television that interesting most of the time, it’s just that I feel somewhat left out these days! My next phone upgrade isn’t due until perhaps next Spring, and if I can’t get a suitable handset under 10,000 yen I’ll just not bother!

Oh, and what is One Seg anyway? I know that it is short for One Segment, but wait while I look up the detailed meaning… Ahh, here’s a good explanation from Pink Tentacle about what it really means.
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