世論 What Japan Thinks

Between the first and fifth of March this year, yet another survey that MyVoice conducted was into the matter of water-resistant mobile phones.

Demographics

15,771 members of their online community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifites.

I must say this is perhaps the oddest mobile phone topic I’ve translated! The only waterproof mobiles I know are the rather chunky and masculine G-Shock watch-inspired G’zOne Casio mobile phones, although I don’t know what the situation is regarding just splash resistance in other handsets. I’ve never given mobile phone waterproofing any thought, myself, and quite frankly I worry about those people who seem to want to read ebooks on their mobiles in the bath, and I hope there is no intersection between the group wanting to use in the bath and those wanting to take photos!
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To coincide with the first anniversary of the release of Nintendo’s DS Lite handheld console in Japan on March 2nd 2006, japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into portable gaming, although this report focuses on the DS Lite only.

Demographics

330 people from JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor group completed the survey conducted over four days between the 7th and 10th of March.52.4% of the sample was male, 24.2% in their twenties, 45.5% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

I still haven’t bought my DS sadly. I suppose I could use the excuse that it’s always sold out whenever I go to the shops, but the truth be told I’m a little scared to buy just in case I get addicted and start ignoring this blog!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into digital cameras. Over the 21st and 22nd of February they interviewed 300 people from their internet monitor group by means of a private questionnaire.

Demographics

As usual for Cross Marketing, the sample was 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of teenagers, people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

Just last weekend I bought a new camera, a Panasonic DMC-FS1 LS1. Yes, in that pictured pink! I haven’t got round to opening it, but I had to get a new one after dropping the old one a couple of weeks ago due to me getting zapped by static electricity when getting it passed from wifey, knocking the lens extension motor out of kilter when it landed on the ground.

I print infrequently, and save the photos to the hard disk. I think the option of saving to removable media implies moving the photos to DVD or CD as soon as possible, rather than just using external media as a back-up for the hard disk.
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Following up on two days ago’s translated survey that showed surprisingly high penetration of Internet Explorer 7, japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into Windows Vista. The survey was conducted on the 28th of February, barely a month after Vista’s release in Japan, which seems not to have been much of a success. Note also the results of a previous survey conducted last year into interest in Microsoft Vista recorded one in five planning to upgrade.

Demographics

330 people from their monitor group employed in public or private enterprises replied to the private internet-based survey. 74.8% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their twenties, 43.9% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

I’m holding off from Vista for the moment myself; I don’t see any need to upgrade from XP, and indeed I also see many reasons not to upgrade, having used it for a time at work last Autumn when testing out the beta versions. Despite most people having Vista-ready notebook computers, I don’t know of anyone at our workplace who has tried upgrading their main PCs.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research towards the end of February investigating the subject of opinions about mobile phone weight and size. Note for reference that a survey last year found that the most popular by far form factor for phones was the clamshell.

Demographics

Of the 330 people from JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor pool who completed the survey, 51.2% were male, 25.8% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

When I pick up a typical Japanese model, to me there just seems to be nothing but a skeleton there. Nothing to hold on to, and I am afraid to squeeze too hard in case they break. I worry too about living with them, perhaps they are all looks and no substance. I feel the same way about modile phones too.

Seriously, I do find most of the DoCoMo 900 series too chunky, but I’m happy with my standard-sized Panasonic P702iD clamsheel. Also note that there are three news phones claiming to be the thinnest in the world, given certain qualifications: the DoCoMo N703iμ and P703iμ are both 11.4mm thick clamshells, and the SoftBank 708SC is an 8.4mm candybar. In addition, the positively obese Motorola MOTORAZR, at 14.9mm, is being promoted quite heavily in Japan.
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MyVoice recently reported on the results of a survey into the matter of mobile phones. It may be of interest to cross-reference with yesterday’s translation of a similarly-themed MyVoice survey into mobile phone service provider image.

Demographics

13,252 people from MyVoice’s internet community answered the questionnaire between the 1st and 5th of February. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

The two main problems I find with mobile phones are first, even if you stay with the same service provider and the same mobile phone maker, even just a minor model upgrade can mean that the internal software is completely rewritten, and one needs to relearn the quirks of the new email system or character input methods. Second, new models sometimes see not just a feature rewrite, but a degradation in usability. For example, my old phone allowed me to check what the particular ring tone setting were for each contact group in my phone book; now I cannot. I know from working with other projects that usability sadly seems to come pretty low down in the pecking order when designing software.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the topic of home computer monitors. On the 4th of February they interviewed 330 people employed in the public and private sectors. 76.7% of the sample was male, 17.9% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

It’s interesting that Japanese prefered the more modestly-sized monitors. I wonder if this reflects the lack of free space in the average Japanese home? I know for my part I couldn’t really fit in anything more than the 17 inch I currently use at home. Not having been shopping for monitors recently, however, I cannot guess as to what the price of a new LCD monitor might be!
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With my recent post on mobile phone upgrades being picked up by Mobile Opportunity, I thought it would be interesting to look at a similar topic reported by japan.internet.com, this time a look by Cross Marketing Inc at the Spring 2007 mobile phone models. On the 31st of January and 1st of February 300 people from their internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, sex and age groups were evenly divided; 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in each of the age groups from teenage to those in their fifties.
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A couple of weeks ago japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 29th monthly survey into mobile phone upgrade needs. Over three days at the start of January exactly 1,000 members of their monitor panel (presumably all mobile phone owners) successfully completed a private internet-based survey. 53.0% of the sample was female, 2.1% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 25.1% in their forties, and 14.1% aged fifty or older.

Just yesterday, my wife upgraded her phone – what sold the Panasonic P703i to her even more than the pink colouring (actually, she bought the wavey blue one) was the inclusion of Lisa and Gaspard icon sets.
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japan.internet.com finally got out of holiday mode and published their first summary of a survey for the new Year, one conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the 28th of December on the prospect of domestic robots. 330 members of their research monitor group successfully completed the internet-based questionnaire. 46.7% of the sample was male, 13.3% in their twenties, 51.2% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 6.4% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

This is a subject that I have previously reported on, but in the year or so since I did that translation there seems to have been a bit of a shift in favour of robots.

Note that in Q2, the “robo-partner” answer does seem to mean seeing the robot as a spouse!
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