世論 What Japan Thinks

With the recent kerfuffle in the news about the impending closure of 2 channel, or at least the threat of a forced seizure of the domain name, or perhaps just business as usual, japan.internet.com reported on goo Research’s survey into what people thought about the rumoured closing down. Between the 19th and 21st of January they interviewed 1,059 people from their monitor group. 51.9% were male, 26.9% in their twenties, 25.1% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, and 23.4% in their fifties.

Note that a previous survey showed that 56% of a sample of mainly business professionals have visited there, so I would have through that there might have been a stronger showing of people with definite opinions about the news, especially considering that over three quarters of the total population have visited the site, and just 4% have not heard anything about it. Also note that as far as I can see, neither my blog nor my name appears on that site, but I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign!
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of public wireless LAN connections. On the 7th of January they interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprise. 80.3% of the sample was male, 15.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

Note that in another survey last year, almost half of all interviewed used a wireless connection at home, so it isn’t a lack of awareness holding back people, although it could of course be a lack of portable machines, although since JR Tokai Express Research’s monitor base is heavily business-person oriented (it mainly advertises though, and awards points for discounts on, shinkansen bullet trains) one might expect there to be a high percentage of people with portable devices capable of accessing WiFi access points. Perhaps the full survey results analyse this aspect, and why almost three in five want to use public WiFi but haven’t yet.

I’m writing this whilst sitting in the biggest Freds Cafe (lovely bread, well worth a visit!) in Hankyuu Umeda station in Osaka, but there is absolutely no WiFi signal present according to NetStumbler. Anyone know about the availability of free (and legal!) WiFi in central Osaka? Apart from Starbucks, who I refuse to patronise, where else is there?
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japan.internet.com reported on an interesting survey recently conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into news consumption. Between the 10th and 12th of January they interviewed 300 mobile phone users from their monitor group; the sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% aged 18 or 19, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties. Note that the full survey (available at a fee) covers many genres of news other than just the politics and technology groups featured in this article.

In particular regarding political news coverage, the results presented here have data points that are reassuring and others that are a bit depressing. The good news is that a relatively small one in five uses the internet as their primary politics news source. Whilst there are exceptions, like my favourite, Trans-Pacific Radio’s Seijigiri, certainly in the English-language world the perception I have is that many people gravitate towards the http://www.MyViewIsCorrectAndYouAreWrongWrongWrong.com sort of site. The bad news is that television is the most popular medium. Although I am in no way an expert on Japanese television news, not even a regular follower, I do get the impression that mainstream bulletins have little or no analysis, and there are few in-depth current-affairs programmes to rival, for instance, Newsnight in the UK, although I do hear that that’s gone downhill recently.

Personally, about the only current affairs program I enjoy (even though it is a little celebrity-heavy at times they at least give the lightweights little air-time, but that Kevin guy makes me want to throw stuff at the telly!) is “Bakusho Mondai’s Hikari Ota’s If I Were Prime Minister…”. That’s a login-free New York Times story, and it describes the show far better than I could. It’s worth catching every Friday 8pm to 9pm on NTV.
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japan.internet.com today reported on the results of an opinion poll conducted by goo Research on the subject of search engines and advertising keywords. They interviewed 1,099 ordinary members of their monitor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample was male, 24.9% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 22.2% in their forties, 20.6% in their fifties, and 10.7% in their sixties. This article is only a excerpt from their full report, which seems to have lots more relevant statistics regarding this subject.

I’m very curious to know whether search keywords are used as heavily in other countries. The majority of television adverts seem to have keywords, often with no URL, greatly outnumbering those with only URLs. I also wonder if any of these Japanese advertising search terms have been usurped by googlebombing, as they do seem ripe for targeting.

Interestingly enough, the page on “Google bombing” in Wikipedia is translated into 17 other languages, but Japanese is conspicuous by its absence. Googlebombing (Google 爆撃, bakugeki) only appears once in Japanese Wikipedia in the middle of another page discussing SEO techniques. Surely there must be some well-known Japanese Googlebombs, or even Yahoobombs, since that engine is the winner in Q1?
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted towards the end of December by Cross Marketing Inc into the topic of online avatars. They interviewed 300 prescreened people from their monitor pool who were either very or a little familiar with, or had just heard of avatars. The sample was the usual for Cross Marketing equal split of males and females, and a fifth in each age category, from teens to those in their fifties.

Avatars are these wee icons or animated characters that represent one’s person in online spaces; I plan to set up a MyBlogLog community for my site so my visitors can see each other, or at least an idealised representation of themselves. I did plan to try out one or more of the services listed below in order to try to design a little electronic me, but they all seem to choke on Opera. At least that saves you from having to witness my hamfisted art skills…
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With Japan’s population aging at quite a pace, japan.internet.com published the results of some timely research by JR Tokai Express Research into old folks-targeted web sites. They interviewed 330 mature people from their internet monitor group; 74.5% were male, and 70.9% were in their 50s, 26.1% in their sixties, and 3.0% in their seventies.

Note being of that age yet, I cannot really comment, but my father is currently learning how to surf as part of free training provided by the Scottish (or British?) government for everyone of a retired age. Currently all of the internet is delegated to my mother, so we’ll see wht he gets up to after he finished his training!
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Just in time for the New Year, japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into peoples plans for sending 年賀状, nengajou, New Year postcards for the forthcoming Year of the Inoshishi (Wild Boar). 331 members of their monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the group was male, 6.3% in their teens, 20.5% in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 23.9% in their forties, 6.9% in their fifties, 1.2% in their sixties, and another 1.2% aged 70 or older.

We finally got our cards posted out this evening, a grand total of 90 for us to send. As for email, I think the most we’ll do is a short normal mobile phone email or two rather than any special service.

Have a great New Year when it comes, everyone!
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japan.internet.com recerntly reported on an opinion poll conducted just before Christmas by goo Research on the subject of awareness of Web 2.0. 1,075 people from their monitor group successfully completed the internet-based private survey. 53.5% of the sample was male, 17.9% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 16.8% in their thirties, 17.4% in their forties, and 28.2% aged fifty or older. Note that this demographic is slightly more male and younger than the average monitor group from goo Research; perhaps due to Christmas and other end of year activities the sample was slightly skewed?

For me, I’d have to say that I’m fed up hearing about it, and it’s over-hyped, an answer that sadly was not available. Perhaps that’s one of the 20 others in Q1SQ1?

As can be seen in Q2 and the headline, Google users seem more aware of Web 2.0, although the exact causal relationship is unclear. All in all an interesting but puzzling set of results.

In case you’re wondering, here The Register sums up what Web Two Point Naught is all about.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into Wikipedia usage. 1,088 members of their monitor panel successfully completed the internet-based opinion poll. 47.1% of the sample was male, 20.9% in their twenties, 41.8% in their thirties, 26.5% in their forties, and 10.8% in their fifties.

This month, Japanese Wikipedia was chosen as the overall grand prize winner in the “WEB of the Year 2006″ (Japanese link) awards. In addition, on the 15th of this month it crossed the 300,000 article mark.

With Wikipedia, if I am looking up a simple fact I know I can most likely trust the article, but for not just anything remotely controversial but also others that require specialised knowledge I find myself often wondering if it is correct or not, and end up doing my own research to corraborate the data! Having said all that, I did refer today to two articles which referred to current events and I was pleased to find information that I found useful and trustworthy. On the other hand, did I find it trustworthy just because the information supported my stance on the matters concerned?
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s fourth regular Social Networking Service (SNS) survey, conducted at the start of December amongst 1,093 members of their internet monitor pool. 54.2% of the respondents were female, 2.4% in their teens, 21.7% in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 24.2% in their forties, 9.8% in their fifties, and 3.5% aged sixty or older.

It’s interesting to notice the distinct (but predictable) split in the sexes in Q1SQ2 – women use SNSs primarily to communicate, men use it for finding others who share their hobbies.

Oh, and I’m still to use the invitation to mixi I got sent by one of my readers perhaps over six months ago…
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