世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 25th regular survey into blogging. Every month since April 2004 they have looked into the blogging market, and the highlights from this April’s results are presented below. They interviewed 1,068 people from their monitor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.1% of the sample was female, and 2.4% were in their teens, 26.6% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 20.7% in their forties, 7.7% in their fifties, and 2.5% sixty years old or older.

The huge number choosing to remain anonymous is rather surprising to me, and I’d like to find out about what sort of blogs people are hiding behind. Perhaps a further study on this matter is in order.
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japan.internet.com, in conjuction with JR Tokai Express Research, looked at the use of affiliate schemes by bloggers and web page maintainers. They surveyed 330 people employed in public or private businesses; 86.1% of the sample was male, 10.6% were in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, 38.2% in their forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties. Note that perhaps people who are ranking in vast sums of money from blogging wouldn’t be wasting their time filling in surveys for the chance of a few yen off a Green Car seat!

The survey did not mention how “affiliate” was defined; obviously sponsored links like with Amazon Associates would fall under this category, but as to whether AdSense (click that button on the left to find out more!) is also included, this survey does not clarify. Just for the sake of disclosure, at the rate I’m going at, my target for the year is in the 5,000 to 10,000 yen range (yes, just one hundred bucks!) although I had a bumper month last month where I managed to raise more than my hosting fee!
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japan.internet.com recently released an opinion poll, performed in conjuction with goo Research, to see what people thought about the novelisation (or novelization, if you prefer) of blogs and other web contents. 1,013 people completed their internet-based questionnaire, with 60.4% female. 27.0% of the respondents were in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 23.9% in their forties, and 6.4% in their fifties.

When a similar survey was carried out a year ago, during the height of the “Densha Otoko” boom, 35.0% of the people surveyed then said they would want to buy a novelisation of a blog.

I can’t say I’ve come across any blogs I’d like to see as a book, although having said that I don’t follow any regular diary-like narrative-based blogs, which would seem to be the best material for making into a book.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Over four days at the end of November and start of December last year, goo Research carried out a closed internet-based survey of 2,207 businesspeople to find out about the use of intra-company communication tools and blogs, and other related matters.

Note that this survey was carried out before probably the most famous Japanese blogging CEO became an ex-president and an ex-blogger, so I wonder how the answers to the questions in this second half would change if this survey were repeated today.

One thing I noticed from the company I worked for’s attempt to introduce a community was that a cheerleader or evangelist is needed to help get the ball rolling. Although the next survey question suggests that over half the people want to see management backing, the backing in itself is not the key, I don’t think, it is that the bosses should also be in the vanguard, otherwise there may be a tendency for the whole think to just fizzle out.
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[part 1] [part 2]

Over four days at the end of November and start of December last year, goo Research carried out a closed internet-based survey of 2,207 businesspeople to find out about the use of intra-company communication tools and blogs, and other related matters.

This is one subject I’d love to wax lyrical on, but sadly I suspect I’d probably get sacked if my boss read what I want to say! Suffice to say I am unaware of a blog by our prez; most of his communications are by PDF files. About a year ago we did try to introduce a community-based service that failed, perhaps partially due to it being seen as a gaijin thing, but more importantly … I’d better self-censor this post now.

The main problem people report is regarding information overload; either simply too much data or inability to highlight the new information. Interestingly, almost two-thirds are interested in work-related blogs, yet only just over half are interested in a community site, although the survey does not make clear what definition of “community” was used.
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On the 27th of January, japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, published their 23rd survey on blogging. 1,076 people from all around the country and of all ages completed the internet-based questionnaire. 42.3% were male, 3.4% teenagers, 24.4% in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 24.4% in their forties, and 9.7% fifty or over.

See also the recent story from Mutant Frog to understand the Japanese blogosphere a bit better. I find it interesting that over 70% have had a trackback, but less than 40% have made one. I wonder how these figures compare with other countries? Mutant Frog suggested that the Japanese blog world is mostly ignorant of the world outside its borders. Are many of the bloggers also blogging purely for themselves? Of course another factor is that people may not be aware that their blogging platform automatically trackbacks any links.
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Just as a change of pace today, I got a wee email from Yume Mirai about her new blog, Japan Diary of Culture. She was kind enough to mention my site in a recent entry, so I am returning the favour through this post! She does mention a few interesting survey results, and one that particularly caught my eye was where she mentions a poll on what Japanese men find attractive in women:

The result showed what kind of women are attractive for Japanese men. Those are having a mild personality ( iyashi kei ), individual ( kosei teki ), graceful ( jyohin ) and intelligent ( chiteki ).

However, another poll I translated on what nationalities people might want to marry suggested that citizens of the USA were the most popular country for wives, but I certainly wouldn’t describe the average American woman as having a mild personality, and I’m a bit sceptical on graceful too!

Anyway, it’s a nice site, and I do like hearing genuine voices, so I can recommend you visit.

Talking about genuine voices, I also like Mari’s Diary: Me and Tokyo, who was also kind enough to write a short entry about my blog. I’ve linked to her a good number of times as she has articles on many aspects of Japanese life. There’s a vast quantity of content there, and again it’s a very real and personal collection of opinions on her life in Tokyo.

Finally, in contrast to these two blogs by Japanese, Tokyo Times is Lee Chapman’s blog on his life as a gaijin in Japan. He is sometimes cynical about what he sees, but he never gets bitter, a trap that many other gaijin blogs fall into. He’s also mainly responsible for getting that article spread around the world, plucking my blog from obscurity. To insignificance.

Searching around looking for a quote or two to bung up in that box on the top-left there (assuming you’re not reading this through the RSS feed, of course), I found that Jonathan Swift had once written “It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.” One could perhaps easily substitute “San Francisco Starbucks” to bring it right up to date, but I think it is even more apt to use “the Blogosphere” instead. This online echo chamber effect has got both defenders like Joi Ito and detractors like El Reg (and, for the sake of disclosure, me).

This site is trying to be a foam baffle in a Tokyo coffee-shop, to help the voice of the empire be heard above the petty squabbling of the Japanophiles and the Japanophobics.

goo Research, in cooperation with japan.internet.com, carried out their 20th survey on blogging in Japan. Note that I have previously translated their 19th survey. Since the number with blogs and the number commenting on blogs have both increased by a factor of six, I wonder if there is a causative relationship here; is genuine interest in the blogosphere increasing people’s urge to post, or is it just blatant self-promotion for ones blog? For me, it’s a combination of the two!

They surveyed 1,083 people, 41.09% male, 1.94% 19 or under, 27.98% in their 20s, 39.24% in their 30s, 19.94% in their 40s, and 10.90% fifty or older.

Q: In the last month, have you viewed a blog? (Sample size=1,083)

Yes	76.36%
No	17.27%
Don’t really know what a blog is	6.37%

The people who have viewed a blog has basically tripled in the last year and a half, and the don’t knows have dropped over six-fold from 40.80% since that very first survey.

As for what sort of blogs people are usually reading, the most popular answer was the bog-standard daily life blogs, at 39.90%, followed by no theme in particular at 32.04%, with film and music blogs third, way back at 16.93%.

Q: Have you posted a comment on a blog site? (Sample size=827)

Yes	28.05%
No	71.95%

This percentage is over double the number in the first survey 18 months ago, and allowing for the fact that over three times the number of people are now reading blogs, this represents an increase of a factor of six in the raw percentage of blog posters.

Q: In the last month, which blog service provider’s blogs have you visited? (Sample size=827, multiple answer)

Kokorogu	26.00%
Hadena diary	34.22%
My profile	4.72%
Blog people	6.77%
Livedoor blog	44.38%
excite blog	27.21%
Doblog	5.93%
gooBLOG	36.40%
WebryBlog	5.08%
Blogzine	3.63%
JUGEM	8.59%
SeesaaBLOG	7.86%
Yahoo! BLOGS	46.07%
yaplog	16.08%
Ameba Blog	26.12%
Rakuten Blog	34.70%
MSN Spaces	9.67%

Interesting that the above are all Japanese-based services.

Q: Have you made your own blog? (Sample size=1,083)

Yes	31.86%
No, but I want to try sometime	29.46%
No, and I don’t want to	32.23%
Don’t really know what a blog is	6.46%

The percentage with blogs or planning to make blogs has basically doubled in the last year and a half. Those respondents currently with blogs has increased by a factor of six. Most people have just one blog service account, at 66.09%, but the number with two or more has over doubled since the very first survey. However, although the number of blogs has increased, the percentage updating their blogs at least weekly has dropped 2.5% to 60.00%, but since the number of bloggers has increased six-fold, this drop is perhaps not significant. As for why people create a blog, the main reason is people wanting to keep a notebook, at 57.68%.

Q: Has your blog had a trackback? (Sample size=345)

Yes	70.43%
No	29.57%

Q: Have you done a trackback on another site? (Sample size=345)

Yes	37.10%
No	62.90%

Recently (how recently is not stated!) goo Research published this survey on blog awareness and usage in Japan, their 19th survey in their series on blogging. 1,042 Internet users aged from teens to their 50s were surveyed, with 58.83% (uggh, what’s with the two decimal places? I’ll round to one for the rest of this story) of the sample women. The following results were obtained:

Q: Within the last month, have you looked at someone else’s blog?

Yes	75.4%
No	18.9%
Don’t know what a blog is	5.7%

The viewers percentage has tripled since their first survey last April and the don’t knows have decreased from almost 41% first time out.

Q: Within the last month, have you posted a comment on someone else’s blog?

	All	Male	Female
Yes	25.4%	22.2%	27.8%
No	74.6%	77.8%	72.2%

Q:Have you made a blog yourself?

Yes	27.2%
No but I want to try sometime	33.3%
No, and don’t plan to	32.2%
Don’t know what a blog is	7.3%

The number not knowing what a blog is has increased! Perhaps people paniced at this question and realised they didn’t really understand things after all?

There now follows a large table describing what blogs people use, but rather than reproduce the whole lot, the highlights from the sample of 283 bloggers are livedoor leading at 17.7%, down from 23.4% last time (last month?); goo at 16.2% down from 17.7%; and Rakuten at 15.2% from 15.6%. Yahoo! and not listed others are the only gainers, 2% and 4% respectively.

One reason for more losers than winners is that the question allows multiple answers. The last time the average blogger used just under one and a half services; this time it is just under 1.4 services, suggesting either people are keeping less blogs or moving their blogs to a single provider.

Q: About how often do you update your blog? (Sample size=283)

Daily or so	21.9%
Twice or thrice a week	26.9%
Once a week	13.8%
Twice or thrice a month	14.1%
Once a month	5.6%
Once every two or three months	6.7%
Less than once every six months	11%

Q: Has your blog received a trackback? (Sample size=283 I think)

	All	Male	Female
Yes	68.2%	72.6%	65.5%
No	31.8%	27.4%	34.5%

On the other hand, only 33.9% have sent a trackback to another blog.

Q: Do you use an affiliate (cash-for-clicks) program? (Sample size=283)

I participate in one already	16.6%
I definitely want to join one	26.5%
I want to join one	25.1%
I don’t really want to join one	14.8%
I don’t want to join one	6.4%
Don’t know	10.6%

Finally, bloggers and those who wanted to be bloggers were asked what were the three most important factors when selecting a blog service to build a blog in. Of the 630 respondents, the top three answers were “Easy to make” at 77.5%, “Easy to understand management system” at 59.0%, and finally “Freedom of layout” at 37.1%. Strangely, I thought, magazine recommendations was right down at the bottom, less than 1% selecting it as a key factor.