世論 What Japan Thinks

Here is the second of this week’s smartphone surveys, this time it is iShare reporting on smartphones, voice calls and VoIP, where VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol, in other words calls made computer to computer using an internet connection rather than phone to phone dialed calls. The best-known VoIP packages are probably Skype and Google Talk.

Demographics

Over the 3rd and 4th of October 2011 1,209 smartphone using members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 29.4% in their twenties, and 70.6% in their thirties.

Voice call costs don’t bother me as the only person I phone is my wife, and I get free calls to her. Anyway, I don’t phone her much anyway, as we almost exclusively email.
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Here is the second of this week’s smartphone surveys, this time it is iShare reporting on smartphones, voice calls and VoIP, where VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol, in other words calls made computer to computer using an internet connection rather than phone to phone dialed calls. The best-known VoIP packages are probably Skype and Google Talk.

Demographics

Over the 3rd and 4th of October 2011 1,209 smartphone using members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were female, 29.4% in their twenties, and 70.6% in their thirties.

As we saw from yesterday’s survey, about one in three smartphone users also have a standard mobile. However, all the questions in this survey referred to smartphone usage only.

I’m getting the itching to buy a smartphone again. I was looking at the pricing and as you can now get free wifi, and access to docomo’s official smartphone web mail sp-mode free from data package charges, it should be possible to run a smartphone for less than I currently pay for my dumb phone, namely 2,500 yen per month or so.
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This week will be smartphone week, with three (at least) surveys coming up on various aspects of smartphones. First out of the gate is this from DIMSDRIVE Research conducted back in May of this year.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 26th of May 2011 11,893 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.0% of the sample were male, 0.6% in their teens, 7.5% in their twenties, 24.5% in their thirties, 32.8% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, and 13.6% aged sixty or older

As with other surveys, this survey shows that a lot of people carry both a smartphone and a feature phone, but unfortunately no reason was reported for why people kept both.
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With the release of the iPhone 4S in Japan, SoftBank are no longer the only mobile company offering Apple’s phone, but now au from KDDI have joined them, and this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone upgrades will not make pleasant reading for the SoftBank management.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 27th of October 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone (including smartphone) owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.6% of the sample were female, 1.2% in their teens, 11.3% in their twenties, 29.8% in their thirties, 28.0% in their forties, and 29.7% aged fifty or older.

I’m now getting much keener on a smartphone – perhaps the coming January I’ll finally make the leap?
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With recent reports of Sony and rather surprisingly Nintendo too losing money, they undoubtedly have high hopes for their next generation of consoles, but this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into games machines (the first in a new series of regular surveys) does not make good reading.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of October 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.3% aged fifty or older.

I wonder if just as people talk about a post-PC world where smartphones and tablets take the fore, are we also entering a post-console world? Zynga, the makers of FarmVille and other Facebook games are about to float at a valuation of $6 billion, and DeNA, the people who run the almost-exclusively Japanese gaming site Mobage had a turnover of about $1.5 billion (yes, dollars, not yen) last year with a profit ratio of about 50%! However, both these companies offer mainly pretty simple browser-based games using the freemium model – free to play, but with additional items available for a fee. Similarly, the iPhone and Android app stores price games very cheap and support them using either or both in-game advertising or paid-for additional items or levels. Thus, a separate console plus $30 or $40 per game looks not too good a deal.
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This seems a rather appropriate survey to translate right now, as I’m on holiday and will be soon arriving at my hotel which according to its web page has free internet; and indeed it does, although you have to phone the front desk to get a password. This seems to be the favourite location for people to connect, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into travel and the internet.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

My usual way of connecting is of course at the hotel room, but others include coffee shops, as fortunately most countries other than Japan offer free wireless. Furthermore, as my overseas travel is to conferences, I of course use the conference wireless too. Last time I was in Hong Kong I even tried to use the wifi on the airport express train, but the only way to get an access code was to dial a special number for an SNS passcode, but my phone didn’t seem to work…

The article also notes that there was not a distinction made between whether people were connecting to the internet from the hotel via their own mobile phones or from computers set up in the hotel, and they thought that might make a good survey. I would add that they also ought to ask about who brings a netbook, notebook or a tablet with them on holiday.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by goo Research, looked at 3D movies.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 11th of October 2011 1,085 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 11.6% aged sixty or older.

I have absolutely no plan to buy a 3D television, and I always try to find the 2D version of movies, although recently it’s become harder, especially trying to find the combination of both 2D and subtitled instead of dubbed versions.
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goo Ranking recently surveyed their members to find out what items of fashion women would baulk at their boyfriends wearing or putting on.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of September 2011 1,112 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 70.8% of the sample were female, 13.5% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 28.1% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 8.7% in their fifties, and 6.0% 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. This survey was for the women only.

This is another one of these surveys that leaves me scratching my head as to the point; nail art and skirts on men are a very different statement to, say, a piercing or a tanktop. Here’s a photo from Flickr of someone violating numbers 2, 4, 12, 18 and 21 at least!

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into viewing advertisements on mobile phones, the second time this regular survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 13th of October 2011 1,091 mobile phone-owning (including smartphone) members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 60.7% of the sample were female, 4.0% in their teens, 25.5% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 23.3% in their forties, and 8.2% aged fifty or older.

I don’t browse anything outside of docomo’s walled garden on my mobile, but even that bungs an ugly animated gif at the top of the home page.
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goo Research, in conjunction with the electronic magazine OnDeck, took a look at cooking your own books, an expression in Japanese which refers to the activity of scanning your books to an electronic format.

Demographics

There were two distinct samples; first, the OnDeck readership was surveyed between the 12th and 20th of September 2011, with 294 people replying, then the goo Research online monitor group was surveyed over the 12th and 13th of October 2011, with 1,063 completing the survey.

As well as doing the scanning yourself at home, there are a number of companies that will do it for you. You send them a box of books, and they will scan them in and return them to you, but only after guillotining off the spine to prevent you reselling the paper editions. This service operates in a bit of a legal black hole – it may be illegal, but no-one has taken a case to court yet, as far as I am aware. Here’s a video of how to do it at home:

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