世論 What Japan Thinks

With many Japanese companies paying winter bonuses at the end of week, this might be a good time to look at a recent survey reported on japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into portable games machines.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor group successfully competed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each age group. These age groups were 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.

As I’ve probably mentioned too many times already (perhaps I should make an Amazon wish list so you can all buy me a present?) I really want to get the new red and black DS Lite. I have two Japanese learning titles waiting for me at home! Perhaps this weekend…?

One of the reasons, perhaps, for the good PSP figures in Q3 is that, as one can see from Q1, a lot of people already have a DS or DS Lite, therefore wanting a PSP makes sense. However, how many of them will actually go out and spend the money is open to debate.

Finally, in Q2, I get the impression that DS Lites are now in sufficient stock almost everywhere, but perhaps with the end of year spending spree coming up, it will get difficult to get your hands on again? You may want to cross-reference these figures with a similar question asked in March this year.
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I haven’t been to karaoke for a number of years, not least due to being so tone deaf that not even the fanciest of karaoke electronic trickery can fix my singing voice. Perhaps some of my readers have, so if so you might recognise the topic of this survey reported by japan.internet.com and performed by Cross Marketing Inc into communication on the internet, with this article focusing in particular on karaoke.

Demographics

Over the 14th and 15th of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s monitor group successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. Each age group was split 50:50 male and female, and 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.

Apparently the end of the year is one of the busy times for karaoke boxes, because when work end-of-year parties finish and talk starts on the subject of the “second party”, the karaoke box is often a popular place to continue drinking. The article also notes a recently-coined word, ヒトカラ, hitokara, or going to karaoke by oneself.

I find it interesting that in Q1 only 2 out of 300 have never ever been to karaoke.
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This is another one of these surveys that I particularly like, taking a look at a slightly obscure topic and revealing just a little bit of trivial information regarding the habits of many Japanese, and I hope my readers enjoy them too! This time japan.internet.com reported on a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into computers at home.

Demographics

Over the 31st of October and 1st of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor group who use a computer at home successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for this survey company, there was a 50:50 split by sex, and 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.

Chez Ken Y-N actually has a study, or more precisely a spare bedroom that acts as a cupboard, but with a computer desk squeezed into one corner. In Q2 I was surprised that at most one person actually uses a laptop as a laptop. Unfortunately there was no information provided on what percentage of the machines were desktop versus laptops.
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With communication and community being two of the driving forces behind many new web sites, and indeed being two of the building blocks of Web 2.0, it is instructive to have a look at this survey recently reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Corss Marketing Inc into internet communication.

Demographics

On the 7th and 8th of November 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor pool successfully completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% 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.

Looking at the results of this survey, it is fair to conclude that the average Japanese internet user is not an anti-social git!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into portable digital musics players. Note that this survey is concerned with just hard disk or memory-based specialised music players; CDs and MDs are excluded, as are mobile phones with music playback capabilities, and PDAs.

Demographics

Over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor pool who owned a portable digital music player successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample was male, 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 don’t really think there is much new in this survey, but I present it just as another data point that ilustrates Apple’s strength in the Japanese marketplace.
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RTFM – Read The Friendly (or substitute other words begining with F) Manual. I wonder if there is a slang expression in Japanese with a similar meaning? To find out whether or not RTFMing goes on in Japan, Cross Marketing Inc produced a report, with the highlights published by japan.internet.com, on the topic of paper manuals for personal computers.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of October 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male and female split, and 20.0% in each age band from teens to fifties.

As perhaps a cross-reference, I looked at this topic last year in relation to mobile phone manuals.

I don’t know why in Q1SQ2 they didn’t offer as one of the answers that it is quicker to look up the internet or an electronic manual, or even just phone the support line. I’d love to have seen data for both these actions
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With the recent news about DoCoMo and au by KDDI cutting monthly costs but increasing handset prices, japan.internet.com reported on a timely survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone pricing.

Demographics

Over the 3rd and 4th of October 2007 330 mobile phone using members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 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 in fifties.

Note that in Q1 the price is for the handset only, not all the accessories too. I paid about 8,000 yen for my last one, but I got a company discount. I feel too that the basic monthly fee is quite high, although lots of discounts get applied to the price. However, due to the multiple discount schemes, separate charges for services, etc, the basic plan fee always stands out as just about the biggest number on my bills.
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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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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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One topic I often mention here is the apparent lack of sophistication amongst my Japanese colleagues when it comes to technical matters, despite working in a technical atmosphere. Our company recommends (but doesn’t enforce) Becky! and recommends that we avoid Outlook Express due to the many security weaknesses, although everyone should be running a virus scanner locally and our central server also has virus scanning. Despite these warnings, around a third of the engineers in my office still stick with Outlook Express, and most of the Becky! users don’t seem to have any automatic sorting to folders set up. There is one guy who runs emacs mail on Windows, which I think deserves some sort of award.

Ah yes, we had a survey to look at. japan.internet.com reported on one conducted by Cross Marketing Inc on the topic of electronic mail.

Demographics

On the 12th and 13th of September 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The group was split 50:50 male and female, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% in their fifties.

As I’ve said before, I’m a big Becky! fan, as it’s got a great set of features without being bloatware and is well worth trying out.
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