世論 What Japan Thinks

Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory recently conducted another survey that proved interesting despite the rather plain title of The use of smartphone camera apps.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 16th of November 2013 558 members of the MMD Labo monitor group completed a private internet-based questionniare. The respondents were aged 18 or older, and all were smartphone users, but further statistics were not presented.

The reason I mentioned the silent camera apps being worrying in the headline is that although I’m sure it is only intended for not scaring pets or babies, hardly a week in Japan seems to go by without a public servant being arrested for upskirt photos, so a silent camera is one way to get around the mandatory shutter noise that all phones in Japan must make.
Read the rest of this entry »

I hear a lot of good things about mirrorless SLR cameras as an entry point into the world of keen amateur photographer, so this survey from goo Research into the topic gives a good overview of why people are buying or wanting to buy them.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 18th of October 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research monitor group aged twenty or older completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 19.9% in their twenties, 20.3% in their thirties, 20.1% in their forties, 19.5% in their fifties, and 20.1% aged sixty or older.

I used to be quite keen on getting one, as my point and shoot is getting a bit dented, but now I’ve got my smartphone with a passable camera and instant connectivity, my compact camera is now gathering dust, and a mirrorless SLR just feels like too much bother!
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently took a look at the lightly related topics of web sites and photograph printing.

Demographics

Between the 30th of August and the 2nd of September 2011 1,010 computer-using and mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.3% of the sample were male, 16.8% were in their teens, 20.5% in their twenties, 19.6% in their thirties, 21.4% in their forties, and 21.7% in their fifties. Furthermore, 50.7% used standard mobile phones and 49.3% smartphones, 54.8% had laptops as their primary computer at home, 44.9% with desktops, and 0.4% with tablets.

I print out stuff about once a month or so, usually emails; before you condemn me for wasting paper, in my defense they are emails from my mother and I translate them with the in-laws. Perhaps if I had a smartphone, or even a tablet, I could save a sheet of paper or two a year…
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phones but focusing on camera features in this report, found that cameras were now ubiquitous on mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 18th of February 2011 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Currently the makers are fighting a megapixel war in Japan, in both traditional feature phones and smartphones. For feature phones, Panasonic have their 13 megapixel Lumix phone, LG their ugly as sin jobby-brown 12 megapixel effort, and Sony-Ericsson the stupidly over-specced 16 megapixels; for smartphones, Toshiba’s Android-based 12 megapixel camera.
Read the rest of this entry »

This survey from iShare into enjoying a foreign holiday with a camera is rather appropriate as I’m currently on a foreign holiday business trip in Hawaii, as you can perhaps see from the photo below.

Demographics

Over the 14th and 15th of September 2010 2,468 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service who had had a foreign holiday completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 75.4% of the sample were male, 44.4% in their thirties, 44.5% in their forties, and 11.1% in their fifties.

I’m usually pretty hopeless at taking photos, both quantity and quality-wise, but hopefully this time at Hawaii I have redeemed myself!

Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com has been a bit barren recently – I don’t know why they’ve decreased the number of surveys they publish – so this survey from goo Research is not one I would normally choose, but needs must. The topic was web cameras and headsets, but the published results were quite uninteresting.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of August 2010 1,041 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

I’ve got just a headset, which I only use for very occasional internet telephone calls. I did try training Windows Vista’s speech to text software using them, but some combination of the headset, the input settings, Microsoft coding and my accent meant that I couldn’t get much more than 50% accuracy, making typing a whole lot faster.
Read the rest of this entry »

In this the latest mobile phone upgrade needs survey from goo Research, their 52nd in the series, in the report by japan.internet.com they chose to focus on camera-related issues.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 23rd of June 2010 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the survey were female, 1.9% in their teens, 13.3% in their twenties, 24.4% in their thirties, 29.2% in their forties, and 21.2% aged fifty or older.

In the latest round of summer model mobile phones, they are a good number now with 13 megapixel cameras, although as most people will tell you, it’s not the raw megapixels but the quality of the sensor that is important. On a mobile with a limited size and often cheap lens, above five or eight megapixels you’ll not see any benefit, and perhaps even a degradation.
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into digital cameras.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of April 2010 1,084 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 15.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.5% aged sixty or older.

I want to buy a digital SLR, but I’m not quite sure how I would get on with it, or whether I get enough opportunities to take photos. I’m always in awe of the skills of the numerous Japan photo bloggers such as Lee at Tokyo Times, Muza-chan, i, cjw (who needs to get a coffee table book deal!), and Danny Choo to name just a few. There’s also a flickr group for photos from Japan that hopefully should be embedded here:

Read the rest of this entry »

With a couple of digital SLR makers advertising the benefits of movie taking with them, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into digital cameras found that about three in five saw this as useful to some degree.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 5th of February 2010 1,093 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

One of the benefits being pushed for SLR movies is that one doesn’t need to carry a video camera around as well when on holiday. However, the benefit of a dedicated video camera is that they are easier to hold for a longer time, I would guess. Hmm, I wonder if that’s a business opportunity, a handle add-on for SLRs to allow you to hold them one-handed like a video camera.
Read the rest of this entry »

Given the high level of ownership of digital cameras reported in this survey from goo Research and featured on japan.internet.com, one has to wonder, as the question wasn’t answered in the article, why almost half the people manage less than 5 gigabytes of stored images.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 9th of June 2009 1,042 members of the goo Research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.8% aged sixty or older.

On the other hand, Q3 asks specifically about photographs one has taken oneself, and since it is the wife who usually uses the camera, probably less than 2 GB of the 20 GB or more is actually mine…
Read the rest of this entry »