世論 What Japan Thinks

The provision of public wireless internet is Japan is pretty terrible. I’ve personally only tried a few times, but either I got no signal or I couldn’t get my hardware configured correctly. One place I’m very surprised that it’s not installed is on the Shinkansen, the Bullet Train. Their latest N700 series now has laptop power plugs on most of the seats, but sadly they chose not to include either wired or wireless internet connections even though mobile phone service is supported on even the older models of trains. So, recently japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc (part of the same group that operates the wireless-free Shinkansens) into public wireless LANs.

Demographics

On the 20th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel who were employed in either the public or the private sector completed an internet-based questionnaire. 84.1% of the sample was male, 13.2% in their twenties, 35.3% in their thirties, 37.1% in their forties, 12.6% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

One other reason, perhaps, that there is not as strong a demand for wireless is that you can get high-speed mobile phone-based access from companies such as EMobile, with their offering of unlimited 3.6 Mbps at a fixed price of just 4,980 yen per month. I’m typing this up in a hotel in Los Angeles that has free wireless in all the rooms and all the public areas, yet when I stayed in a relatively posh hotel in central Osaka a couple of months ago I couldn’t get a signal at all, and there was no mention of wired or wireless service in the hotel information booklet.

Note that this survey covers services in all public areas from stations to hotels via restaurants and cafes. Deliberately leeching off a wide-open domestic router probably doesn’t count!
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I too would love an extra hour in bed at weekdays, but unfortunately one extra hour then would mean both a crowded train and extra overtime, so it’s at 5:30 am I must wake on weekdays. Recently MyVoice conducted a survey to find out how the Japanese feel about the matter, looking at the topic of mornings.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2007 13,641 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet survey. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% aged fifty or older.

In Q2SQ and Q4, only 1.8% and 2.1% selected doing the other if they had time in the mornings, which no doubt goes some way to explaining the low birth rate in Japan…
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I’ve never actually ventured into a manga or net cafe myself, as I do have an image of them being dark, slightly dodgy places that smell of stale tobacco and stale otaku. I’m probably completely and utterly wrong, so perhaps in the name of research I should poke my nose in once just to confirm or correct my mental picture! So, as reported by japan.internet.com, recently Cross Marketing Inc looked at internet cafes and manga kissas (comic cafes).

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of September 2007 300 people from Cross Marketing Inc’s monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sexes were split 50:50, and 20.0% of the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

The most often used feature I hear about from fellow foreigners is sleeping! If you miss the last train, dossing down in a net cafe is a cheap option, it seems.
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I’ve looked before at which Office suite Japanese people use, so the basic figures below will perhaps not be so new to my readers, but perhaps there is some new information that can be gleaned from this recent survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on the matter of desktop applications in the corporate environment.

Demographics

On the 25th of September 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 84.9% of the sample was male, 11.8% in their twenties, 34.7% in theor thirties, 39.3% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

Of the product categories listed in Q1, I use Microsoft-only for all categories bar the very occasional FileMaker database and I use Notepad2 for my text-based editing needs.
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Here’s a fun survey from goo Ranking on what foreign food chain people would like to see open near to their homes. The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.

Looking at the list, Subway is about the only one I’d want near to home. Taco Bell seems a curious one to appear in the list; I’m not aware of any in Japan, and Mexican food of any kind is definitely a rarity in Japan.

The still stupidly-popular Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is due to open their second shop on the 12th of October 2007 at Yurakucho in Tokyo, it seems.
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I hesitate to post this survey as I already get about one dud trackback per day (fortunately eaten by Spam Karma) from a couple of dodgy MFA (Made For Adsense) RSS scrapers from articles on the topic of reducing phone bills, but I will place my faith in the power of karma! So, here goes with a report from MyVoice on the subject of mobile phone bills.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2007 13,789 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I used to have the DoCoMo Packet Back discount, but I didn’t use enough packets to make it worthwhile so I cancelled it. Wifey has the all-you-can-eat deal, and despite prodding, she is not using it enough to get her money’s worth out of it; in fact she ended up spending more money buying MP3 ringtones, 100 yen for a thirty-second clip! I’ll have to search out software that allows you to import audio from SD cards so I can rip music myself.
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I love search engines, not least because they are responsible for generating about 75% of my AdSense income! I get barely any traffic from Japanese-language searches, however. To find out a bit more about what the Japanese do with them, as reported by japan.internet.com, JR Tokai Express recently conducted a survey into the rather grandly titled subject of information gathering power of search portal sites.

Demographics

On the 7th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were employed in the public or private sector (why limit to these, I don’t know. Perhaps there was additional questions on work-based usage patterns?) answered an internet-based questionnaire. 82.3% of the sample was male, 12.3% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 38.9% in their forties, 8.4% in their fifties, and 0.3%, or just one person, was in their sixties.

I’d love to know where people most often get their answers from. If the Japanese keyword side of the search engines are as polluted with Wikipedia results as the English side, then perhaps a lot of people are taking the Wikipedia results at face value. There was an interesting case this week about how a rogue edit, making the recently-deceased Ronny Halzehurst a co-author of a pop hit, was copied by lazy journalists, and now these newspaper’s error is used to back up the veracity of Wikipedia’s disinformation.
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I’ve read a grand total of exactly one book on a PDA, and zero on mobile phones. I just found it too tiring squinting at a small screen, and as I’m not on an unlimited plan, downloading material to my mobile phone is prohibitively expensive. To find out what Japan thinks, let’s look at a survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research on the topic of electronic books.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of September 2007 1,088 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample was male, 17.3% in their teens, 19.9% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.0% aged sixty or older.

Note that DoCoMo and SoftBank (and most likely au too) have free manga libraries for their customers, if you have an unlimited contract and looking for something to download and practice your Japanese on.
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I personally go to Subway about once every few months and Mister Donuts with about the same frequency; Subway for carry-out dinner, Mister Donuts to loiter and drink lots of free coffee refills! However, it is obvious that McD’s are wildly popular in Japan, and this recent survey by MyVoice on fast food backs up this casual observation.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2007 13,728 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 17% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

I’d love to know exactly why McDonalds comes tops of frequency of use in Q3 but MOS Burger is prefered in Q5. One reason is definitely the relative number of outlets; 1,500 MOS Burgers but 3,800 McDs, and the second being price; McDs has plenty of 100 yen menu options, whereas MOS Burgers sell for about 700 yen each. Since MOS Burger’s selling point is quality, they refuse to get into price wars.

Lotteria have recently annouced a 100 yen menu to compete with McDonalds, and the bonus question in Q6 on Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is perhaps inspired by the huge queues outside their shop, even after nine months after opening!

Oh, and the MOS of MOuSe Burger is made up from the initials for “Mountain, Ocean, Sky”, apparently.
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With all the hype and surveys recently about Second Life and Wikipedia, poor old blogging seems to have been forgotton about! I can only recall publishing a single translation on this topic this year, so it was nice to find a report on japan.internet.com of a recent survey by Cross Marketing Inc on running a blog.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 20th of September 2007 300 blogging members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 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’m not sure how accurate the answers in Q3 are as some blogging software makes trackbacks (or pingbacks) automatic, but others require manual intervention, and sometimes a different target URL needs to be specified. I’ve personally only once or twice tried manual trackbacks to blogs that need them, and when I’ve tried they’ve actually failed!
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