世論 What Japan Thinks

Even though a month has passed, we still welcome all your donations in Japan! Here’s a list of a few places where you can give:

US Red Cross
UK Red Cross
Canada Red Cross
Japan Red Cross
Medecins Sans Frontieres.

On to the survey, which was performed by iShare, looking at digital donations.

Demographics

On the 1st of April 2011 853 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.8% of the sample were male, 5.5% in their twenties, 47.5% in their thirties, and 47.0% in their forties.

I must admit to not having made a points donation myself, although my wife gave lots as she fills in surveys for points. As for digital contents, I’ve not seen any myself, but then again I’ve not gone looking. Any suggestions from my readership will be most welcome!
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goo Research recently performed their 14th regular survey into internet advertising; this is their first reported survey since the earthquake, and it was noted that people living in certain of the affected areas were excluded from the survey.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of March 2011 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 17.1% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 20.9% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, and 26.6% aged fifty or older.

Despite Google constantly updating their AdSense system to make it more attractive for clickers, and despite my traffic steadily rising, but allowing for the yen depreciation, for the last three years my income has remained sadly flat. I do have contextual adverts in my custom search, but I think most of the people searching my site fall into the “almost never look at them” demographic!
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With most of the usual survey publishers out of action or on reduced output thanks to the earthquake and related events, I’m having to translate some surveys I would usually just skip over, so my apologies in advance if you don’t find this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into computer use of mobile phone users too interesting. This is the 25th time they have conducted this survey, and although I have used the direct translation of the title, it should really be called “computer use of goo Research computer-based monitors who also signed up as mobile phone monitors and are answering a survey delivered to their mobile phones”. If you understand that, you might even understand the story title too!

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of February 2011 1,081 mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.1% of the sample were female, 6.8% in their teens, 36.0% in their twenties, 34.4% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, and 6.5% aged fifty or older.

You’ll also note that the demographics are quite different from the usual computer-based goo Research; almost two-thirds female here versus a slight male majority for computer-based.
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goo Research recently took a look at online language study services. The results of this survey were reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 5th of February 2011 1,088 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

I must at this point mention my online pal Koichi at Tofugu and TextFugu, where he runs a Japanese-language study course. It’s not free, and although I’ve never used it it does seem to be very highly rated, and he even offers a 110% moneyback guarantee!
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This survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com was the 24th regular monthly survey into mobile phone users’ computer use.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 13th of February 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample were male, 3.3% in their teens, 22.7% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 8.6% aged fifty or older. Note that all monitor members have to be computer users to sign up, so by implication all 1,000 users should also have computers.

I’m translating this mail right now thanks to a mobile phone email from Mister Donut, which contained a 20% off coupon for a very nice crunchy chocolate Pon De Ring and enough coffee to get me to the end of this translation.

I am on about two other mobile phone mailing lists – one for my mobile phone shop (once a month and I delete it immediately) and one from my mobile phone provider’s credit card company, which I don’t think I’m allowed to unsubscribe from!
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This recent survey from goo Research, in conjuction with social media consultants Looops Communications, took a look at corporate social media use, a follow-up to a July survey into the same topic.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of November 2010 480 members of the goo Research online monitor group who used a corporate Twitter account as part of their job completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Sex and age demographics were not reported as they were not particularly significant; instead company size was reported. 34.2% worked in companies of under 10 employees, 20.8% between 10 and 99 employees, 26.9% between 100 and 999 employees, and 18.1% with 1,000 or more employees. Furthermore, 64.0% were consumer-oriented companies (B2C), 23.5% public or private-sector oriented (B2B), and 12.5% were both B2C and B2B.

My employer just recently got ranked in the top ten social media-using corporations in Japan according to Agile Media Networks. The results first Coca-Cola, second Suntory, third Sega, fourth Panasonic, fifth Lawson’s, sixth Ajinomoto, seventh Nike, eighth Sony, ninth Universal Studios Japan, and tenth Unilever. Surprisingly, Uniqlo were not in the top fifty. Perhaps I should translate that result soon?
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The results from this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into online services may not be too reliable for SNS as number two and number three in the list, GREE and Mobage Town, are both mobile phone-based social gaming sites and I feel that the demographic they appeal to differs significantly from the more PC-oriented goo monitor group. I have no data to back up this, so take it with an appropriately-sized pinch of salt.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of January 2010 1,102 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 20.9% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties and 12.6% aged sixty or older.

I’m on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even have uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube.
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This survey from Macromill Research takes a look at the latest internet service that is tipped by some to take off in Japan, Facebook, from the perspective of those using it, but these early adoptors seem to be quite different from the typical Japanese.

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of January 2011 500 members of the Macromill monitor group who were also Facebook members completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 69.6% of the sample were male, 1.6% in their teens, 20.8% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 30.2% in their forties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Note Q1, 31% having lived overseas. This is very high, and although the survey didn’t define how long to count, the Japanese used indicated that more than a foreign holiday or a business trip would count, and even a short-term homestay might be out of scope. This is backed up by the 30% searching for foreign friends, indicating that it is a more internationalised crowd that sign up for the service.
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Just in time for the New Year nengajo postcard season, goo Research performed a survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, into that subject, with the report focusing on a service from mixi, Japan’s largest SNS, that allows people to send physical postcards to virtual friends, while maintaining the pseudo-anonymity of people’s online handles.

Demographics

Over the 7th and 8th of December 2010 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Since Facebook doesn’t offer such a service for Christmas cards (as far as I know), I can conclude that either such a degree of privacy is of no great concern to the average Facebook user or that the average user has no urge to send cards to their Facebook friends. Perhaps it might be more of the second, as surveys have found that Japanese have a significantly lower number of social network friends, indicating that they are more discerning about who they befriend.

Q3 is a quite surprising result from my point of view; note that the question refers to disclosing your address to mixi only, not to your contacts on the SNS, yet 70% don’t feel too happy about doing so.
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goo Research recently conducted their thirteenth regular survey into internet advertising, with japan.internet.com reporting on the results.

h3>Demographics
Between the 19th and 22nd of November 2010 1,036 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

To try to catch the third of you who click on contextual affiliate adverts, I’ll mention that if you are running under Windows AdMuncher by Murray Hurps is an excellent blocker for 99% of all advertisements and works with any browser. It’s not free, but it’s great value and might even pay for itself if you surf using a 3G connection. It’s blocked about 200 adverts a day on my netbook, and makes for a much more pleasant experience as valuable screen space isn’t consumed by huge adverts. Once again, buy AdMuncher by Murray Hurps through this link and help out What Japan Thinks!
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