世論 What Japan Thinks

As a sort-of follow-up to one of my more popular recent translations, the emoticons of Japan, let’s have a look at the results of a recent opinion poll reported by japan.internet.com. In the middle of October Cross Marketing Inc interviewed 300 mobile phone mail-using members of its internet monitor pool regarding their use of features like デコメール, deco-mail, available on most of the newer mobile phones that allows the user to send an HTML message with a border or similar template, in-line graphics, selected font colours and sizes, and other decorative features. The demographics of the sample were the usual Cross Marketing equal divisions – half and half male and female, and 20.0% in each of the five age groups from teens to fifties.

Just for the record, KDDI (au and TU-KA) call it デコレーションメール, decoration mail, and SoftBank Mobile’s feature is named アレンジメール, arrange mail. Note that the HTML mail is viewable not just on the models that support its creation, but also on most phones with a built-in browser and even on PCs. Also note that since most people get charged by the packet, there is a considerable expense for both the sender and the receiver.

I’ve not used the feature, so I can’t comment on how good or otherwise it is, but my new phone that I pick up tomorrow does support it, so I’ll have to give it a go.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into losing portable electronic equipment. Towards the end of September they interviewed 330 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internet survey. 73.0% were male, 15.2% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 32.1% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and just 0.9% in their sixties.

This survey was probably insired by the recent survey carried out in Europe into losing electronic equipment at airports, which found that a lot of people were willing to just ditch their mobile phone and get a better model through their insurance. With such an insurance scheme being rare in Japan, and with people perhaps more attached to their mobile as a fashion statement rather than as just a tool, if the amount of mascots, stickers and ring tones on even a serious businessman’s phone are anything to go by.
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NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey that they conducted into mobile phones with GPS functionality. They conducted the respondents by means of an open survey available through the menu systems of the three main phone companies’ web systems, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, Vodafone (now Softbank) live! (which has just changed its name “Yahoo! Keitai”, judging by the advertisements I’ve seen), and au and TU-KA’s EZweb. Over 17 hours during the 7th and 8th of September 3,608 people successfully completed the survey; 58% were female, 2% in their teens, 35% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

GPS is Global Positioning System, a system for locating where you currently are based on triangulation with satellites. I’ve heard it doesn’t work so well in the shadows of tall buildings or of course underground, so one would think that the use in Japan is rather limited. However, there do seem to be a number of software tools that build around the GPS system, from walking navigation systems to substitutes for car navigation via, of course, keeping track of your children.
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japan.internet.com published the results of the latest survey by JR Tokai Express Research, conducted at the end of September into the usage of video contents on mobile phones and other portable devices. They interviewed 330 people from their internet monitor panel. 72.1% were male, 18.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

I’m still looking for my ideal video playback device; around iPod Nano size, but with a screen covering all of one face. Battery life would need to be around four hours, or two hours plus external battery pack for emergencies, although two hours is perhaps borderline. I’ll be buying a new phone, a P702iD, which apparently has video playback from SD card, but as to the quality, I’ll have to wait and see. I’d love to be able to download on my PC the latest BBC news overnight and have an SD card waiting for me in the morning loaded with the news sized to the mobile’s screen. There is apparently iChannel that does this for you for a fee, but the transmission charges would make it unfeasable, I fear.
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Last week japan.internet.com published the results of research by Cross Marketing Inc into voice calls with mobile phones. 300 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private questionnaire; demographically there was the usual Cross Marketing equal 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.

I prefer fixed lines, as sometimes mobiles are difficult to hear, and the full-size handset just feels better. And, of course, call costs are much cheaper!
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At the start of last month, MyVoice asked its monitor panel whether they read their mobile phone’s manual. They got 12,967 valid replies to their private internet-based opinion poll; 54% of the respondents were female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

Most telephones come with a telephone directory thickness manual, although usually in A5 size, plus perhaps two other subsiduary manuals. Actually, English speakers have it best, as there is usually a 10 or 20 page appendix with a potted guide to the phone that summarises all the key features in English.

Oh, and RTFM is, for those who might not know, an abbreviation for Read The Friendly (or substituting other F-words as necessary) Manual.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by goo Research’s mobile group on what sort of mobile phone people had. This mobile survey is slightly different from the usual style – this is sent directly to the mobile phones of members of their monitor group, and is called a “real time” survey. This was their sixteenth mobile users’ survey (but the first I’ve translated, I think), and this time they received 1,086 successfully completed questionnaires. 56.5% of the respondents were female, 3.8% in their teens, 30.8% in their twenties, 41.0% in their thirties, 20.6% in their forties, and 3.8% aged fifty or older.

This survey is quite an incomplete one, so apologies in advance for the lack of full information for some of the questions. I should register with them so I can get the full data, although I do worry about infringing copyright if I republish data obtained via a semi-private site, even if it is free to access.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into how people exchange mobile phone numbers and email addresses. 330 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online survey; 62.7% of the group was male, 15.5% in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

Although the infra-red connection is probably the surest way to exchange data, one problem is, if my experiences are anything to go by, people forget how to use the feature! There is one general “Receive infrared” menu option, but everyone seems to forget where it is; it would make more sense when you select the “Add new contact” option to have a sub-menu saying “Receive data from infra-red”. Coupled with that, there should be a semi-automated exchange. Actually, it might be better to add to the “Display own number” screen an “Exchange via infra-red”, so if both parties select that screen, the send and receive can occur at the same time.

I’ve probably now given away a patentable idea that my employers could have used!
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Whith the Autumn national road safety campaign coming upon us soon, it is quite timely to look at this survey published by japan.internet.com and carried out by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phones and hands-free equipment. They interviewed 320 car drivers who also own mobile phone from their internet monitor group, exactly 50:50 male and female as usual, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% in their fifties. How often they actually drove cars is not noted, however.

When reading the answers in Q3, remember first that the respondents are being asked to admit if they break the law and second that the response, “Often” (my translation of やや守る, yaya mamoru) is open to interpretation; would people who refrain from calling or mailing out but answer incoming calls select “often” as their reply? My completely unscientific observations would suggest that there’s a lot more scofflaws than just the 7% this survey suggests.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the use of mobile phone web sites. As usual for infoPLANT, they gained their respondents by means of a self-selecting public questionnaire, available for a week at the end of August through DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 4,472 people, 62.1% female, successfully completed the survey.

Whenever I publish a translation of infoPLANT’s surveys I always add a disclaimer about the self-selecting nature of the survey. However, this survey gives a good picture of the habits of heavy iMode users, as I believe most of the infoPLANT respondents are, so this can be a good reference when trying to understand the other polls they have conducted.

Also, when I saw the results of the poll, I couldn’t resist the temptation to run the story with such a title!
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