世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet use also found a lot of old hands out there.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of March 2010 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 1.0% in their teens, 19.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’m trying to think back as to why exactly I started using the internet – I used to be on Compuserve (wow! it’s still going!), but then when it shut down its walled garden to move to an internet-based system I just moved too. I suppose it was simply a mix of curiousity and necessity.
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Despite this survey from Point On Research into mobile phone email targeting heavy users of mobile phones, reported on by japan.internet.com, the figures for emailing are quite impressively large! You may also want to cross-reference the results with another survey last month also from Point On Research with a similar demographic that showed very little mobile voice usage.

Demographics

On the 30th of March 2010 800 heavy users of mobile phones completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

I send and receive probably around 10 emoji-ridden emails per day, three to five from me, about four to six incoming, I would estimate. I usually do reply as soon as I can, except on the train home as I’m too busy translating these surveys to distract myself with a reply! It would have been interesting to see a cross-reference between the number of emails and the pattern for replying to them.
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With the new batch of graduates joining companies this month, here’s a look by goo Ranking at what people want to warn new starts about. In addition, more experienced pople are expected to teach them the ropes, so there’s also look by goo Ranking at what business manners people are not confident they do correctly.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of February 2010 1,123 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the sample were female, 9.6% in their teens, 22.2% in their twenties, 32.1% in their thirties, 24.9% in their forties, 7.5% in their fifties, and 3.8% 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.

Seating order is an important topic – in a Japanese room the most senior sits opposite the door, so that when the ninja come it’s just the plebs that get chopped up. However, there’s different rules for where everyone goes depending on whether it’s a round or rectangular table. Seating order on an airplane is a new one on me, and probably a very rare occurance.
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I went on Saturday to the opening day of the new movie, “My Darling is a Foreigner“, a mostly Japanese-language film of the best-selling manga comic series by Saori Ogura, featuring Ms Ogura and her husband Tony Laszlo, and their life together as an international couple in Japan. I’ve read most of the books (there’s even an English translation out now) so I went with high hopes.
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This rather short survey from goo Ranking, in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into staggering long holidays (certainly not staggeringly-long holidays!) found quite a surprising (to me at least) amount of opposition to spreading the two annual five-day spring and autumn holidays across a number of weeks so that different regions of the country are on holiday at different times.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of March 2010 1,060 members of the goo Research monitor aged 20 or older completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Further demographics information was not provided.

I’m all for the idea as currently everything is so busy for one week, with traffic jams and airlines, hotels etc charging a premium just because they, so I just end up staying at home.

As with a lot of these surveys, I cannot really figure out the mindset of these people who oppose the idea.

Note that I suspect that the don’t knows and can’t says have been eliminated from the below results.
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A recent survey from iShare looked into the distance between men and women in relationships. The title is not very exciting, but as is often the case for iShare, the questions and results were both thought-provoking.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of March 2010 901 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.8% of the sample were male, 29.6% in their twenties, 33.2% in their thirties, and 37.2% in their forties.

For me, I’d be level 3 for Q1, L4 for Q2, L5 for Q3 and Q4, L3 for Q5 and L4 for Q6.

I’d like to say that women should drive on daates as I do get a bit fed up not being able to look at the scenery!
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With Panasonic due to start selling their 3D Viera on the 23rd of April, this recent survey from goo Research was on television in general, but the short report on japan.internet.com focused on the timely 3D aspect.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of March 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

As a cross-reference, you might like to look at an earlier survey from iShare on the same subject.

I’m not interested in 3D television, myself. I did notice a couple of days ago in central Osaka the local cable company were promoting their upcoming 3D broadcasts, and there was quite a long queue in front of the demostration stand, but perhaps people were just lining up for whatever freebies they were handing out…
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This recent survey from goo Ranking into the iPhone turned up not only an interesting figure on penetration of the device amongst SoftBank users, but also a pretty impressive high level of desire for Apple’s new iPad.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 27th of March 2010 1,084 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.3% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

I certainly don’t want an iPad, but I can see it doing quite well in Japan, although the size is just slightly too large for usage on a commuter train, especially with having to hold it up for a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps one of the most popular accessories we’ll see in Japan is a lap stand?

And don’t ask me why one person didn’t know whether or not they had an iPhone…
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A recent survey from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into online shopping failures by women found few actually complained to the shop about their problems.

Demographics

On the 23rd of March 2010 300 female members of the iBridge monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.3% were in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.7% in their forties, 9.3% in their fifties, and 5.7% in their sixties.

Even though she will often complain about other things, the few times my wife has had problems with online ordering, in particular with clothes, she hasn’t bothered to do anything as she says it’s too much hassle and cost to return the items, despite her usual shop offering no questions asked refunds of unworn clothes.
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This latest survey into internet advertising, from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, their 10th regular survey on the topic, didn’t ask (or didn’t report) the one question I want to hear the results to, whether or not people run ad blocking software.

Demographics

Over the 16th and 17th of March 2010 1,062 members of the goo monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, and 27.2% aged fifty or older.

My wife runs the Rakuten toolbar, which gives you one Rakuten search point (I’m not sure exactly how they work) when you use the toolbar to search, but the result page that comes out has almost the whole first screen full of text adverts, often for sites that appear in the natural results the next screen down. It all seems a bit of con to me, and I should really tweak Ad Muncher so it hides them all!
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