世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, published the results of a survey carried out in the middle of June into advertisements in search results. This was part of a bigger survey on search engines in general, but sadly the results are not available to the general public. They interviewed 1,031 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.8% of the respondents were female, with 23.9% of the total sample in their twenties, 40.8% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 8.0% in their fiftiesm and 2.0% in their sixties.

One very suprising result is that MSN has a mere 3.7% market share as a primary search engine. Given that MSN is the default page for Internet Explorer in most new installs of Windows, this indicates perhaps a serious level of dissatisfaction with MSN overcoming user inertia.

Another surprise is over two-thirds of users go at least three pages deep into search results. However, the question is not phrased explicitly to find out the maximum or the average, but I feel the answers given indicate the average limit of the user’s patience. I don’t know if this result indicates if people are bad at formulating queries or the search results are usually pretty poor.
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japan.internet.com reported on goo Research’s first regular Social Networking Service (SNS) usage survey. They interviewed by means of a private internet poll 1,067 members of their monitor group. 56.3% of these surveyed were female, 1.6% were in their teens, 20.8% in their twenties, 43.2% in their thirties, 21.4% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 3.9% in their sixties.

I really should join mixi just for the sake of seeing what the fuss is all about, as as I occassionally get searches from people looking for invites to said service. If any of my readers could oblige, I would be most grateful!
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with Cross Marketing Inc, published the results of a survey into communication over the internet. They interviewed 300 computer users at the start of June regarding this question, with exactly half of the group of each sex. Similarly, teenagers made up 20.0% of the respondents, as did those in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

For me personally, as a bit reclusive, I’ve found blogging a great way of meeting people. I’ve made – well, I’ll not number them in case people start counting, but I’ve had a good few other contacts which I should follow up to make them into at least mail friends. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of positive postings and private mail I’ve received, but if you feel I’ve not been replying as much as you might expect (or just not at all!), I’ve got your mail on file and this blog really does eat up 90% of my home PC time, and I’m rather introverted about everything anyway, so sorry folks!
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japan.internet.com recently published a survey conducted JR Tokai Express Research on the use of home networking. They interviewed 330 people from all over the country to find out their views. 60.6% of the sample was male; age demographics were 20.3% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, 27.9% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 5.2% in their sixties.

My personal experience with “wartraining” (like wardriving, only from the train!) is that on my ride home I can pick up about 60 or so open wireless access points according to NetStumbler, the bulk of them being Yahoo BB! wireless routers in their default configuration. Sadly this survey (or at least the free preview that I have translated) did not ask any security-related questions.
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japan.internet.com presented the results of a survey by goo Research into the FIFA World Cup™ and the internet. They interviewed 1,015 people from their monitor group on the 16th to 18th of this month (Japan’s second match against Croatia kicked off late on the evening of the 18th). The sample was 57.2% female, 3.0% were in their teens, 20.3% in their twenties, 42.9% in their thirties, 22.7% in their forties, 8.0% in their fifties, and 3.2% in their sixties.

The article gives a gratuitous plug to the Firefox plugin Joga, so I will too, even though I am an Opera man myself.
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked at the issue of communication on the internet. They surveyed 1,019 members of the goo Research Montiro group by means of a private internet survey. Demographically, 55.8% were female, 2.4% were teenagers, 1,8% in their twenties, 40.4% in their thirties, 26.0% in their forties, and 9.4% in their fiftes.

The survey’s keyword was 不快感, fukaikan, or discomfort; the moment when the survey respondent felt like cursing 「ムカっ！」, muka!, an exclamation abbreviated from むかつく, mukatsuku, a feeling of irritation or annoyance.

I’m surprised that only just over one in three had been offended on the web! Whether this reflects usage patterns that stay away from viper nests like the infamous 2-channel, or whether it shows people are desensitised, I am not sure, although Q3 does indicate that almost half the respondents find net communication more offensive than face-to-face, suggesting it might be usage patterns more than sensitivity that determines whether or not people take offence.
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, published the results of the 9th regular monthly survey on RSS usage. 1,013 members of the goo Research monitor group from all over Japan replied to the private internet-based survey. 56.2% of the sample was female, 2.5% were teenagers, 22.4% in their twenties, 40.6% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 8.3% in their fifties, and 2.7% aged sixty or over.

I can’t say I’ve ever spotted an RSS feed with adverts in it, even though there is a Google program for AdSense for this, and there is another service whose name escapes me right now that offers a similar service. As for visiting sites with feeds, I only do so if I feel the need to comment on a post or look at who might have commented on it. Looking at my log files, I can tell from my LiveJournal feed that just 5% of the readers actually visit my site!
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with JR Tokai Express Research, recently carried out some research to find out how people used webcams. They interviewed 334 people from all over the country; 71.6% were male, 18.0% in their twenties, 37.7% in their thirties, 30.2% in their forties, 12.6% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixtiees.

Unfortunately, this report of the survey results does not give any information about the frequency of use of these web cameras. I would not be surprised, however, if the average user uses it just once or twice then the novelty wears off, but perhaps I’m just biased as I have a dislike of appearing on camera, both still and moving!
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japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 25th regular survey into blogging. Every month since April 2004 they have looked into the blogging market, and the highlights from this April’s results are presented below. They interviewed 1,068 people from their monitor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.1% of the sample was female, and 2.4% were in their teens, 26.6% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 20.7% in their forties, 7.7% in their fifties, and 2.5% sixty years old or older.

The huge number choosing to remain anonymous is rather surprising to me, and I’d like to find out about what sort of blogs people are hiding behind. Perhaps a further study on this matter is in order.
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japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked at the use of Skype in Japan. They interviewed 1,011 people from their research monitor group by means of an internet-based questionnaire. 41.6% of the sample was male, 24.3% were in their twenties, 43.2% in their thirties, 25.4% in their forties, and 7.0% in their fifties.

Skype has been somewhat heavily promoted in Japan, with Livedoor being the main partner, and various hardware is available such as cordless phones or adapters for standard phone lines. However, with Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others offering free PC to PC VoIP service, and with the launch recently of a free IP telephony service in Japan called freep, the marketplace is getting rather crowded.

For those of you interested in learning Japanese, Tae Kim occassionally holds Skype-based language lessons.
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