世論 What Japan Thinks

Considering how wired the country is, with the lowest cost/performance ratio for consumers in the world, the lack of availability of public wifi always surprises me; this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into wireless LANs shows ignorance of their very existance is still quite high.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 21st of June 2009 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

In Q3 it’s perhaps surprising to my overseas readers that games machines were the most popular device other than laptops that were used to connect to wifi hotspots, but to residents here, especially anyone who has visited a Pokemon Centre (the third most popular tourist attraction in Japan!) and seen the numbers hanging out with their DSes. In addition, McDonalds have recently announced wifi hotspots in their restaurants for DS owners.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

The headline figure is not really surprising to me, partially because it has taken so long to get a survey out on the new search engine Bing from Microsoft, this one being conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 22nd of June 2009 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. There was no split by the the sexes listed for some reason, but 12.0% of the respondents were in their twenties, 36.0% in their thirties, 37.3% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and 4.7% in their sixties.

I’ve tried Bing a few times, but I suppose I’m just too much of a Google fan to look objectively at it.

As for the name, the first thing I think of is a bing, a mountain of slag from a coal mine. The second is Bing Hitler, who now seems to be doing rather nice for himself as a host on a US late-night chat show.
Read the rest of this entry »

First, an apology for What Japan Thinks being down again earlier today. I’ve got something strange going on at my host.

Now, on to the survey; MyVoice took a look at email newsletter usage.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 14,939 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I am probably signed up to about ten or so newsletters, but most of them I don’t look at. About the only one I really do pay attention to is from Flying Blue (KLM and Air France mileage card) as they quite often have decent promotional offers. My wife also forwards the Mister Donuts mail to me which usually has nice discount coupons.
Read the rest of this entry »

I do like the word faffing, but a more literal and correct translation of the title of this survey from MyVoice would be filling free time with mobile content.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 exactly 15,000 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I save up all my faffing about for the PC internet; the only mobile internet I use is the very occasional dictionary and the even more occasional downloading of deco-mail artwork.

I must apologise for Q6, as it’s a horribly convoluted question, but I hope it makes sense!
Read the rest of this entry »

Although this survey from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into cosmetics shopping sites has as the survey base women who are already online, discovering that the majority of them who have shopped for cosmetics in the last year have does it at least once online in that period.

Demographics

On the 22nd of June 2009 300 female members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 24.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 24.3% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

I don’t think my wife’s bought online, except for a tester kit that cost a bit of money for delivery. She’s won quite a bit, though, including one that came with a Christian book that seemed to be part of a vaguely pyramid-shaped affiliate scheme…
Read the rest of this entry »

With a great deal of fuss regarding privacy in Japan related to Google’s Street View, resulting in them promising to reshoot everything but from a lower camera angle, this recent survey from iShare into Google Street View found that virtual walkthroughs of theme parks was a popular feature that should be expanded.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of May 2009 569 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.2% of the sample were male, 35.7% were in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, and 34.6% in their forties.

In May of this year Google announced a Street View Partner Program to allow private facilities such as theme parks and other tourist attractions to invite the Google Trike to pedal through the location. In Japan, Kyoto’s Kodaiji temple and Asahigawa Zoo in Hokkaido were among the first locations to sign up.

It was not reported in detail, but the most popular places people wanted to see photographed were Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the latest set of results from goo Research’s regular monthly survey into internet advertising, their sixth in the series, reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of May 2009 1,089 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

I was disappointed to see (but not surprised looking at my revenue!) that links such as me urging you to buy crappy keitai straps from Japan don’t seem to find much favour with Japanese, but email newsletters being even further down the pecking order seemed a surprise, and I’m not really sure why contextual ads come dead last.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a topic that makes me purr with satisfaction, a recent survey from iShare into pet blogs which found that blogging cats were much more popular than dogs.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 19th of May 2009 565 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 35.0% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, and 33.3% in their forties.

I don’t read any pet blogs myself, but my wife keeps a regular watch on Nyanny Cat Cafe, some person with a cocker spaniel whose blog isn’t really interesting enough for me to look for to provide a link, and a vegan Japanese ex-resident of Edinburgh dog-owning woman.

I (well, my wife used my name) also recently won a cat photo book. In Q3, the “other” category would include alpaca, as there is a bit of an alpaca fad doing the rounds these days.
Read the rest of this entry »

Although recently I’ve translated a number of surveys that promised more than they delivered, this time I feel this one, the fourth survey by MyVoice into blogging has a number of interesting revelations.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2009 14,823 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

In Q4, it’s interesting that politics isn’t a selectable theme, but given that just 5% blogged about news in general, I wonder how small that would have been.

Regarding Q5, in Japan they are called blog parts, but in the West they are usually widgets or scriptlets. Looking through the above-linked web site I came across this entertaining one:

For Q6, I’ve been to a cake-related blogger event! I’ve also sadly had to turn down two invites to Danny Choo-organised and corporately-sponsored Tokyo CGM Night, although I did see his Dad’s shoe shop right beside the free cake venue, if that counts for anything.

For Q7, I’d have to immodestly answer “somewhere to use my knowledge, information to contribute to society”, although I do have a letting off steam blog hiding in the shadows… What is blogging to you?
Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of these surveys that might be interesting to see in its entirity, as the taster provided by japan.internet.com of a survey by Marsh Inc into web site viewing habits provided information that without context is difficult to interpret.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 8th of May 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.7% were in their teens, 19.3% 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.

My wife has about three million bookmarks which make the lethargic at the best of times Internet Explorer really crawl whenever she opens up a new window. I keep my bookmarks reasonably-well categorised into folders, but then again there’s only about a dozen or so sites I regularly visit via bookmarks.
Read the rest of this entry »