世論 What Japan Thinks

Most of the big chains of convenience stores have two kiosk-like machines in many of their stores; an ATM machine, and a general-purpose terminal for conducting various transactions. This recent survey from goo Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at how people use convenience stores, with the report focusing on the use of these service kiosks.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of August 2008 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 16.2% were in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 22.4% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, and 26.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that many Japanese net shopping sites, from the tiny stores at Rakuten all the way up to Amazon, allow payment at convenience stores. My wife has a Ticket Pia card, and even when booking through their own official ticket site she can get the option to pick up the tickets from a Family Mart store for no fee as an alternative to about 600 yen fee for registered post. When she picks up the tickets she can opt to pay by cash, but by inserting the card she gets priority seat choice, as they do not assign the seat when booking online (or by the phone), but instead when you pay. If you fail to turn up at the machine within three days you lose your booking. It does seem like a horribly complex and roundabout way of buying things and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of agreement between Ticket Pia and Family Mart whereby Family Mart pay Ticket Pia for sending a customer through their doors.
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This report by DIMSDRIVE Research into breakfast goes into far more detail than is healthy, I suspect! The fieldwork was conducted over three months ago, but it didn’t get published until last month. It’s also a subject that has been covered before on this blog.

Demographics

Between the 30th of April and 8th of May 2008 7,965 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 1.0% in their teens, 13.4% in their twenties, 36.1% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 13.4% in their fifties, and 6.2% aged sixty or older.

I eat breakfast in every day (barring horrendous oversleeping!), but my special treat once every couple or months or so is to head down to a local English-style cafe and indulge in their full English breakfast, or if I’m running a little late, an early afternoon tea.
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With Apple’s iPhone doing – well, nobody knows, as Apple will not allow SoftBank to release any data, but it’s certainly winning the PR and brand image battle. To see if any of the charm has rubbed off onto the iPod touch, JR Tokai Express Research Inc conducted a survey, the results being reported on by japan.internet.com.

Research results

On the 19th of August 2008 332 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sectors completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 85.8% of the sample were male, 6.6% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, 45.5% in their forties, 12.0% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

Talking of the iPhone (I’ve mentioned often enough how little I am interested in portable music) I saw an article in the Australian newspaper … on the Japan iPhone market that was rather inaccurate, so I’ll take this chance to correct it. What they did get right, however, is that the iPhone will shake up the Japan market, but I don’t think it will be quite the earthquake that I first thought. It quotes someone as saying:

Gerhard Fasol, of telecoms consultancy Eurotechnology Japan, estimates they shifted between 75,000 and 125,000 units in July. At that rate, he thinks 2008 sales could total between 645,000 and 1 million.

No, it will not sell one million this year. SoftBank have already dropped the price of the plan to allow a discount for people who use less than 5 Mb of data per month, but that represents barely one page a day through the Safari web browser. WiFi is not a viable option as public access points are rare in Japan, and if one does stick to that, why not just buy an iPod touch and keep one’s proper phone for everything else? No support for emoji for instance, not just input but also display, will turn off just about every casual user.

This potential for continuously upgrading applications, without also needing to replace handsets, is the genuine innovation Apple brings to the Japanese mobile market and the most direct challenge to the existing system..

Almost all newer mobile phones have options to update their firmware and applications, although this option is rarely taken. There is maybe an argument that the iPhone’s process is more user-friendly, but when one thinks of a phone one expects it to work straight out of the factory and not have to have repeated upgrades. Of course, it’s rather difficult to download a One Seg receiver or an electronic cash chip, yet Japanese phones can easily download extra packages to support more types of electronic money.

Now, back to the iPod touch.
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Here’s a pair of surveys that were too short to be separate articles and not quite silly enough for Sundays, so I’ll just post them now as the results have a few talking points in them. As usual, goo Ranking conducted the surveys, one on what cost-saving measures people wish their employer would introduce, and what secret struggles people are engaged in at work.

Demographics

For the first survey, between the 23rd and 25th of June 2008 1,014 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 6.5% in their teens, 14.5% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% aged sixty or older. For the second survey, between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My company doesn’t pay overtime; to be precise, there is a fixed amount of overtime built into one’s salary, 18 hours per month, I think. However, if I work past 10 pm (I only ever do that when I have teleconferences from home) they pay a measely time-and-a-quarter. The telephone meetings usually last under an hour, so I would never, ever, dream of claiming the scheduled two hours.

Back to cost-saving; it would have to be business trips for my team, followed by changing the budgeting system so that the team doesn’t lose its budget if it doesn’t spend all its allocation by the end of the year, leading to a lot of pointless purchasing in the weeks leading up to then.

My secret battle is… ahh, it’s secret, as there’s a chance he reads this blog. The other one is timing using all the hot water in the kettle by lunchtime so my colleague cannot make a cup of coffee during the lunch break and disturb my peace and quiet by SLURPING ALL THE *!%$ING TIME!!1!1!111!
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A rather spicy title for a rather bland survey, I’m afraid! I could only find something borderline silly for today, a survey by goo Ranking into what people didn’t do before they were fully-fledged members of society. In Japan this normally means once someone finishes full-time education and with an additional implication of entering full-time employment.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I only managed about six myself before I started working, with going abroad being one notable one I didn’t do until I was twenty-four, with a business trip to New Orleans being my first overseas experience.

5=, using a taxi ticket, is for people working past the last train home, allowing them to charge the fare to the company. 12, the formal receipt, is for claiming back expenses. Don’t be too surprised at number 8, as there are a lot of older people in the survey who finished school before computers became widespread there.
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The 15th of August this year marked the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of Japan. To find out what young people think of war, goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiuri newspaper performed a survey on this topic.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of July 2008 534 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. The sample was mixed male and female, and ages between teens and those in their thirties. More detailed information is not given

Note that this report is just an excerpt of the full survey, thus some of the results raise more questions than they answer. Why do the majority of young Japanese not see peace lasting? Do they fear external sources like North Korea and China, or internal sources like terrorism – homegrown or imported – or a renouncement of Article Nine, the part of the constitution that forbids Japan from having an offensive army?
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Having just upgraded my computer, I’m in the satisfied to some degree category, but to see what the Japanese think about home computers, JR Tokai Express Research Inc conducted a survey which was reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 19th and 20th of August 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.5% of the sample were male, 2.4% were in their teens, 14.2% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, 9.1% in their sixties, and 5.2% aged seventy or older. Note that due to the survey being conducted online, in Q1 not surprisingly nearly everyone had a home computer.

Ahh, what was right with my old machine! It was old, slow, occasionally needed two or three resets to boot, it was noisy, slow USB ports and temperamental Japanese input to name just the major problems. The new beast that I’ve finally ported stuff over to fixes nearly every one of these complaints, but I’m still getting the hang of Vista and I should have upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM when I bought my Acer Aspire L5100.
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With another recent survey on earthquake preparedness (untranslated by me) showing over two in three rather worried about The Big One hitting, this survey on earthquake early warnings presents a look at a different aspect of the same topic. The survey was conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and published on the japan.internet.com web site.

Demographics

On the 18th of August 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 84.3% of the sample were male (it said the survey was conducted with just internet users, but that’s an even heavier bias towards men than even their panels of employed people!), 4.8% in their twenties, 35.3% in their thirties, 44.7% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, 2.1% in their sixties, and 0.6% aged seventy or older.

The early warning system is not predictions of earthquakes, but instead sensors all over the country can detect an earthquake nearby, and since radio messages travel faster than the earthquake P and S waves, they basically radio ahead to warn that something nasty is coming, usually giving no more than 10 seconds warning, just enough time to dive under a handy table. As The Big One for Tokyo is predicted to likely occur under the city, it does seem rather pointless for the residents of that city.
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No serious internet user should be without Google, and this research conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into Google service awareness shows that many Japanese use it heavily.

Demographics

On the 11th of August 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private on-line questionnaire. 76.1% of the sample were male, 9.4% in their twenties, 37.9% in their thirties, 40.3% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

As Yahoo! beats Google in Japan for most aspects, I’d love to see similar questions asked about that portal too.

Note that this survey was conducted after the Japanese versions of Google Maps Street View was launched, and although Q1SQ1 does not mention it, I wonder if Google Maps was included within the Google Earth answer? I also wonder if AdSense was grouped with AdWords.
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This is a matter that I have pondered about, so it’s interesting to see BlogCh addressing the issue of hot water bum-washing toilet seat usage.

Demographics

Between the 29th and 31st of July 2008 658 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample were male, 13.2% in their twenties, 47.0% in their thirties, 28.6% in their forties, and 11.2% in their teens or fifty or older.

I’ve used the hot water spray twice; once on a toilet with a built-in drier, and once without. Both were rather unpleasant experiences, and the lingering feeling of dampness downstairs was quite disconcerting.

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