世論 What Japan Thinks

Much as I might have thought that there would be a sizeable geek population who would have a copy of Linux installed somewhere on one of their home machines, especially given the multiple machine ownership data, a recent article published on japan.internet.com regarding a survey conducted by goo Research on the topic of computers at home suggests otherwise.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 17th of June 2007 1,087 members of goo Research’s monitor pool successfully completed an online questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample was male, 17.4% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 17.8% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.9% aged sixty or older.

I’m Windows XP on my one home-brew, and if I were upgrading, the main factors controlling my decision would of course be price, followed by at least one gigabyte of memory and perhaps 150 gigs of hard disk. One gig of RAM – I remember when I was a kid trying to persuade my father to let my brother and I raid our savings to buy a 16K ZX81 wobbly RAM pack for a mere £100.
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If you hang around engineer-related web sites too long you get the impression that everyone is building their own computer in a desparate attempt to demonstrate that theirs is bigger than yours. But, what about in Japan? I’ve never tried asking my co-workers what they do, so perhaps this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the topic of building your own PC can be an excuse to ask them about their habits.

Demographics

On the 6th of June 2007 331 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s monitor panel who were either employed or did in their spare time software development, system development, or system management successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 93.1% of the sample was male, 7.6% in their twenties, 37.8% in their thirties, 45.9% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

Perhaps other married people can relate to me, but since tying the knot my PC budget has disappeared, so barring when a video card and a hard disk died, I’ve not delved into my computer for many a year.
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Perhaps I just don’t get enough phone calls and mail, but I’ve never had the experience of having my mobile phone battery run out on me. However, I have recently started regularly recharging my mobile at work as I got as a free gift at a conference a USB cable with multiple adaptors for recharging mobile phones and other devices. To discover what other people do about their mobile batteries, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone batteries.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 30th of May 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Although battery technology is progressing and integrated hardware reduces the power consumption required for many features, as phones sprout more and more features and the manufacturers are pressed by market demands to reduce weight, the battery is often the first component to get slimmed down.

Note that for DoCoMo at least, and perhaps the other makers too, if you have kept the same phone for over two years they will give you a new battery pack free if you ask.

Note also that I reported on a similar survey on mobile phone batteries last year.
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With keyboarding skills becoming a more and more important ability to have in the modern world, although some might argue that in Japan it is mobile phone thumbing speed that is the key, japan.internet.com recently reported on a rather interesting survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into touch-typing abilities.

Demographics

Over the 23th and 24th of May 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based survey. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% of the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% were in their twenties, 20.0% were in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I can touch-type to a certain extent, although I’m sure I’d not win many prizes for my accuracy. One result I’d have like to have seen is what keyboard layout people used; not QWERTY versus Dvorak, but for Japanese entry Romaji versus Kana input, which is basically either spelling things using the latin alphabet or spelling using the native Japanese kana alphabet.
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MyVoice recently published the results of a survey they conducted on the topic of convenience store multimedia terminals. This is apparently the fourth time they have conducted this survey, although the results of previous surveys are not mentioned.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of May 2007 14,945 members of MyVoice’s internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 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.

I’ve used these terminals about once every six months or so, exclusively for completing the purchase of tickets ordered by phone. Perhaps to save on delivery costs, when booking concert tickets by phone the most popular payment option seems to be via these terminals. You get a four-digit code over the phone, you go to the machine, type in your code and your home telephone number, the machine prints out a confirmation order form that you take to the counter, where the staff take your cash and print out your desired tickets.
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Given that it seems most people upgrade their cell phones once every year or so (I actually haven’t seen any data for this!), MyVoice decided to look at the issue of mobile phone recycling.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007, 15,165 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 46% of the sample was male, 2% in thier teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I passed my previous phone back to a DoCoMo shop for recycling, and I suppose I have to trust them to completely reset all the internal memory. Mobile phone manuals are often huge tomes that are rather difficult to find your way around – I’d prefer to refuse them for a small discount, and rely on some decent web search to find what I’m looking for. On their web site, DoCoMo offer PDF copies of their manuals for download, so I wonder why they don’t promote manual-less phones?

Note that most of the 3G Japanese phones come with SIM cards, so old phones can be used by just inserting the current, live card into the old phone.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into digital camera storage issues.

Demographics

1,080 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based survey between the 20th and 21st of April 2007. 51.9% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.8% in their twenties, 17.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.6% aged sixty or older.

My current photo store comes to around 10 gigabytes, with most of it backed up to CD. I was suprised by the large number of people using external hard disks, but with prices dropping I suppose it makes for rapid and flexible backup when compared to CDs or DVDs.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s 31st regular mobile phone upgrade needs survey.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 28th of April 2007 exactly 1,000 members of goo Research’s online monitor group who were mobile phone users successfully completed an online questionnaire. 54.0% were female, 2.3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 41.3% in their thirties, 23.1% in their forties, and 14.9% aged fifty or older.

With the launch of NTT DoCoMo’s 904i series of phones having taken place just four or five days before this survey was conducted, the awareness of the new models seems very high! This new series’ main features seem to be two phone lines in the one handset – not a new feature to the mobile world, but the first time a full model range has suported it – and Napster support for unlimited music downloads. This feature also was previously available in some of the 903i phones, but now for the first time all the phones in te one range support it.

Looking at the answers to Q3, it seems the Sharp AQUOS brand is still strong.
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone body types. Previous surveys have indicated the Japanese love for both clamshell designs and skinny models.

Demographics

Over the 11th and 12th of April 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based survey. All the respondents were mobile phone users living in Tokyo and the surrounding area. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male and female split, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I was surprised to see only one person say they had a Sharp’s AQUOS Keitai. This is the best selling phone design, featuring a quite stunning hinge that they call the Cycloid, it seems. The phone opens like a clamshell, but then the screen can be rotated 90 degrees around a central pivot to allow the user to watch One Seg television in landscape mode.
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Over the first five days at the start of March MyVoice surveyed their internet community on the topic of personal computers. Note that I will use the term PC throughout, but the survey includes Macs and other kinds of home computers too.

Demographics

15,786 people successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

As a side-note, I’ve often wondered by MyVoice has no-one over fifty-nine in their samples. Do they have to leave the online community once they reach that age? Do they really mean in their fifties or older in the group? Perhaps I should email them.

Back on PCs, I have a home-built effort, so if I define buying a new one as upgrading the motherboard, I think it was last changed in the year 2000. Marriage does tend to realign your purchasing priorities, or more precisely one gets one’s purchasing priorities realigned for one. I’m still blogging away on a 900 MHz AMD Athlon, and whilst I’d love to buy a dockable portable, or just anything with a quieter fan, sadly my budget is assigned to other things.
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