世論 What Japan Thinks

PLC, or Power Line Communication, is basically a home networking scheme that allows one to use the standard mains cabling for networking computers. One needs a separate link to the outside world, of course, via ASDL or whatever, but otherwise just a pair of compact plug adapters will get you networked. PLC was the highlighted topic for this story on japan.internet.com based on a survey from goo Research into computers.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of April 2009 1,089 members of the goo Research monitor team completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

If I had a home without built-in ethernet, I’d probably choose PLC over wireless, as there are no worries about freeloaders or other security issues associated with WiFi and the speed is in theory higher, although on the other hand I’ve heard that the main problem with PLC is power spikes inferfering with connections whenever household electrical items turn on and off, and of course if you have an old building with dodgy wiring there’s going to be problems.
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I’ve covered the darker side of file-sharing through P2P software a few times on this blog, but this is the first time for me to look at file forwarding services, a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 6th of April 2009 300 member of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.7% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, 32.3% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 4.3% in their sixties.

I used to use XDrive for a bit, but recently I’ve had no reason to transfer a large amount of data, although if I did I’d probably just upload it to this site and pass the URL across. Our company has an internal system for large file sharing via email, but it is quirky to say the least and seems more like… ahh, I’m very tired and in rather poor humour tonight so I’d better not finish that thought just in case my boss is reading.

Looking a Q1SQ1 and Q1SQ3, 24 people have used free file forwarding services for sending files to people, but 38 people have used free file forwarding services for any purpose. Sadly there is no information about what the other 14 people were doing with such services.

I’ve never heard of any of the Japanese services before!
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With cable companies now offering some of the fastest domestic connectivity in Japan with a speed of up to 160 Mbps on offer at a price competitive with ADSL and FTTH, this is a good time too look with iBridge Research Plus, as reported by japan.internet.com, into CATV, Cable Access Television, with the focus in this story on internet services.

Demographics

On the 13th of April 2009 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 66.0% of the sample were male, 14.7% in their twenties, 36.7% in their thirties, 31.0% in their forties, 13.7% in their fifties, and 4.0% in their sixties. Note that the male to female ratio is higher than usual for iBridge, so I don’t know if that has had a significant effect on the research results.

We have cable television, but as the flat came already wired for FTTH and we get a very cheap price (2,800 yen per month, I think), changing to cable internet is not really that attractive. We also have our fixed-line phone through the cable company, which falls into the others in Q1SQ1, but their international dialing fees are stupidly expensive, so I stick with Skype where possible. I also looked at their mobile phone service, and while their fees were cheap, the only two phones they offered were very low-end.
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The title sounds perhaps as if Sunday has come a day early to the blog, but that was the best title I could think of for this recent survey by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into online shopping failures.

Demographics

On the 30th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 20.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 41.0% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 1.3% in their sixties.

The find of failure this survey was interested in was goods not quite matching the description on the page or accidentally buying the wrong thing, etc, not technical failures or fraud. Don’t ask me why almost one in five of the sample aren’t sure whether or not they failed!
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Sometimes I wonder why I persist with AdSense as the revenue has dropped quite noticeably over the last two years – if everything had stayed the way it was then, I’d be making over triple what I’m getting now, which itself is almost half what I was making at the peak. However, this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com is looking at contextual advertising in blog and news columns from the consumer point of view.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 19th of March 2009 1,085 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 27.6% agerd fifty or older.

Strangely enough, I do actually like to see a few contextual advertisements in blogs and the like; it does feel a bit lonely running an ad blocker all the time!

Note that the 30% who haven’t seen contextual advertisement does not mean that about one in three is running an advertisement blocker; there has to be another reason that I would like to see investigated some time.
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With tomorrow being April Fools’ Day, what would be more appropriate than a look with iShare at virtual April Fools.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of March 2009 380 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 37.4% in their twenties, 27.4% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

April Fools’ Day is I feel not widely known in Japan, although that wasn’t one of the questions asked in this survey. I always keep thinking I ought to do an April Fool here, but I never come up with a good idea. Or am I just saying that to try to catch you off your guard? Or did I just state that in order to confuse you? You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow!

For reference, the JIAFA, Japan Internet April Fool Association, mentioned in Q3 has its website here, although it is rather a barren place. It might be a bit more lively tomorrow, however.

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Although I was at a loss to explain why a previous survey was young women only, it is quite obvious why this survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, on online shopping payment methods focused on the fairer sex.

Demographics

On the 16th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 41.7% in their thirties, 25.7% in their forties, 9.0% in their fifties, and 2.3% in their sixties.

One of the more popular payment methods in the west is surely PayPal, so from my point of view the omission is glaring. Yahoo! Wallet is available in the USA also, and it seems to be mostly a proxy for your own credit card, so your credit card information is held only by Yahoo!, not the merchants and shops that support Yahoo! Wallet, so it should be more secure.
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The title of this post is me being rather creative (read “outright lying”) regarding the results of Q2, but regardless, this survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet scariness finds the average Japanese web user quite the tim’rous beastie.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% 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.

If you don’t know what goatse.cx is, think yourself lucky, and do NOT, I repeat NOT, just look it up to see what I am on about! You have been warned.

I personally don’t find the internet scary at all; irritating in places, but not scary.

For reference, in December of 2007 a similar survey was conducted.

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Why this survey focused only on the young woman demographic is a bit of mystery to me, but that’s what iBridge Research Plus did in this survey reported on by japan.internet.com into web email.

Demographics

On the 9th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 21.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 46.3% in their thirties, and 32.3% in their forties.

With some of the services described below, the email address comes as part of a package – au one Mail is an external mailbox for mobile phones, and to create a livedoor blog you need to create a livedoor email address, a process I have done myself, but both the blog and mailbox lie unused.
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With the launch of UQ Communications’ WiMAX service in Japan on the 26th of February, Marsh Inc performed a survey, reportd on by japan.internet.com, into awareness of WiMAX.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

WiMAX is, of course, err, I don’t really know – something to do with next generation high-speed wireless is about the extent of my knowledge, so instead have a look at a story on Asiajin to see a bit more about what it is.

Q1 is a bit surprising with only 63.0% aware of WiFi. The complete question was not reported, so I wonder if there was something a bit strange about the phrasing.

Q1SQ2 seems a bit strange as the implication is that over 40% of the sample learnt about UQ WiMAX between the asking of Q1 and Q1SQ2, so for this question too there must have been some strange phrasing.
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