世論 What Japan Thinks

Someone who finds the internet scary is someone who doesn’t know what they are really doing, I believe. To findout what the average person thinks, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into internet scariness.

Demographics

Over the 28th and 29th of November 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 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.

With decent virus software and just a little common sense, viruses can be almost completely avoided, although running things like Explorer and Outlook (a sin around 70% are guilty of) does make life a little more interesting on line… A follow-up question would have been to find out how many people had actually suffered from the dangers in Q1SQ, for instance.
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I haven’t been to karaoke for a number of years, not least due to being so tone deaf that not even the fanciest of karaoke electronic trickery can fix my singing voice. Perhaps some of my readers have, so if so you might recognise the topic of this survey reported by japan.internet.com and performed by Cross Marketing Inc into communication on the internet, with this article focusing in particular on karaoke.

Demographics

Over the 14th and 15th of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s monitor group successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. Each age group was split 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.

Apparently the end of the year is one of the busy times for karaoke boxes, because when work end-of-year parties finish and talk starts on the subject of the “second party”, the karaoke box is often a popular place to continue drinking. The article also notes a recently-coined word, ヒトカラ, hitokara, or going to karaoke by oneself.

I find it interesting that in Q1 only 2 out of 300 have never ever been to karaoke.
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Regardless of the headline above, there is of course always a difference between the rated speed and the actual speed that one achieves, and even though nearly two in five are on fiber-optic-based FTTH, often shared lines into apartments are capped at 10 Mbps per dwelling to help prevent one person hogging all the bandwidth. This was one of the findings from an article published on japan.internet.com reporting on a survey conducted by goo Research into the internet environment, with the column focusing on home connection speed in particular.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 18th of November 2007 1,098 members of the goo Research internet monitor group responded to a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample was male, 17.6% were in their teens, 19.3% in their twenties, 15.8% in their thirties, 17.1% in their forties, 18.3% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

I’m basically happy with my connection speed, and I blame any site slowness as much on the internet in general as on the last mile in particular.

Perhaps you are wondering what the average person does with this fat pipe, in particular are they running P2P programs. Well, it just so happens that just recently another survey was conducted on P2P software usage in Japan, which might provide an interesting point of cross-reference.
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It’s been a while since I last looked at P2P (Peer-to-Peer) software; although it is still a big issue in Europe and the USA with many organised piracy rings and individuals getting their collars felt for illegal file-sharing, what is the current situation in Japan, where government workers seem to have perfected the fine art of losing secret information through ill-configured file-sharing software? To find out some of the answers, japan.internet.com presented the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into the use of Winny and other P2P filesharing software.

Demographics

On the 13th of November 2007 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research Inc’s online monitor pool employed in the private or public sector successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 7.9% of the sample were in their twenties, 40.0% in their thirties, 34.8% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 4.5% in their sixties. The split of the sexes is not reported, but recent surveys by JR Tokai Express Research with samples taken from employed people have had around 82% male and 18% female respondents.

In Q1SQ3, I don’t know if the worry about infringing copyright is from the point of view of not wanting to deprive artists, or if it is due to a fear of being caught doing it, although the wording suggests its the stealing aspect that was considered when answering, not the subsequent chance of being arrested for possession.

In addition, only 3.4% complained about their connection speed, because as another recent survey shows, the vast majority of Japanese have fat pipes.
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With communication and community being two of the driving forces behind many new web sites, and indeed being two of the building blocks of Web 2.0, it is instructive to have a look at this survey recently reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Corss Marketing Inc into internet communication.

Demographics

On the 7th and 8th of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor pool successfully completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Looking at the results of this survey, it is fair to conclude that the average Japanese internet user is not an anti-social git!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into 2007′s web trends. Ahh, the first “… of the year” survey for 2007.

Demographics

On the 9th of November 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were employed in private or public industry successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.9% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 33.0% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

The only buzzword that was presented translated into Japanese is “wisdom of the crowds”, becoming 集合知, shuugouchi, although that did very little to aid understanding. In Q2, only about a sixth claim not to know what ubiquitous is, an awareness I doubt native English speakers could duplicate! That figure does seem rather fishy to me, or perhaps the question was framed by presenting a short Japanese explanation of the term.
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Please feel free to select one of the two words in the headlines that fits your own personal bias. I’d love to see a Wikipedia-free Google, myself, or at least an option to exclude it from searches unless specifically asked for. However, I do know that my attitude towards Wikipedia is probably seen by many as elitist, but if you too are fed up with too much Wikipedia in your Google and you run a blog, please feel free to download my Wikipedia nofollow WordPress plugin. It works with Japanese Wikipedia too, but I’ve not noticed it being used on any Japanese sites.

The above serves as an introduction to a recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research entitled the fourth regular survey into Wikipedia and Wiki that they carry out every month.

Demographics

Between the 30th of October and the 2nd of November 2007 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

I found the gripes listed in Q1SQ2 rather interesting; missing from the list above is one of my biggest gripes, that being that articles get too messy and should be reworked to remove duplicated information or to consolidate information. Another big issue, the ever-present trivia section, also didn’t feature. I’m not sure why people get worried about getting a virus from Wikipedia as there’s not really any way for that to happen. I was also surprised that so few mentioned grammar as a problem.
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This blog would not exist if it weren’t for all these online survey organisations from which I can appropriate material for presenting to you. To find out what the average Japanese thinks of these things…; well, in this case it’s not the average Japanese, it’s just those that feel motivated enough or have time to waste answering questionnaires like this. Also, Q1 indicates that almost half the sample take part in no other questionnaires and the like, so what sort of sample do we really have here? This is getting all rather complicated, so rather than trying to analyse the respondents’ motivations, let’s just look at the survey from NEPRO Japan on online voting.

Demographics

Over the 4th and 5th of October 2007 3,906 mobile phone users self-selected themselves to complete a survey through their mobile phone in exchange for the chance of winning a prize. 57% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 34% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

Note that from Q2 we can learn that online voting covers a number of different ways of capturing user opinion, from obtaining demographic information when registering online to getting user ratings on Web 2.0-like word-of-mouth review sites.
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Recently japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into browser start pages, in particular in this article, on settings on work computers.

Demographics

One the 16th of October 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group who were employed in the private or public sectors completed a private online questionnaire. 83.1% were male, 10.6% in their twenties, 42.0% in their thirties, 33.8% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

The official word is that my employers’ intranet works best with Internet Explorer, although I suspect that is code for “we can’t be bothered testing it with anything else”, and best is a relative term. Anyway, regardless of that, I use Opera as my primary browser as it is easy to switch off images and embedded Flash and other objects, not that I need to do that as I of course never ever visit any non-work-related sites. Actually, Opera 9 is banned because it contains a BitTorrent client which might spontaneously start spewing company secrets, or something. My start page is set to nothing at all, with my home browser set the same way. Internet Explorer is set to point to the intranet just because that’s what I mainly use it for.

Following some feedback on an earlier post, I’ve added in hyperlinks to SQs, as I’ve had at least two people mention my use of (to SQ) was confusing. I hope they help!
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I’m still actually to sign up to any SNS so please don’t ask me for mixi invites, although recently I nearly joined MySpace due to hearing about some punk from my school days. To find out how the average Japanese ends up on mixi or other SNSs (Social Networking Services), japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research, their 9th regular survey on SNS.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of October 2007 1,086 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample was male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I’ve been skipping recent editions of this survey as the reported statistics have not been terribly interesting. However, this time I think the data is worth reporting. I find it interesting that nearly two-thirds of the current users have not actually invited anyone else to join, although given the fact that mixi is so well-established as the market leader, like a pyramid scheme once the market is saturated those at the bottom run out of people to invite as most people who are interested in joining have already joined, perhaps.
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