世論 What Japan Thinks

Last week we learnt that almost all Japanese net users used Google, and indeed almost 50% claimed to use it always, although Gen Kanai did alert me that the figures were most likely dud. To back up his claim, I now present a survey reported on by japan.internet.com, performed by Cross Marketing Inc, on search engine access.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23 of August 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing Inc online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, the sample was evenly split; 50:50 male and female, and 25:25:25:25 from each of the age groups from twenties to fifties.

For myself, I am very rarely unfaithful to Google; whenever the need to access Yahoo! or MSN comes up, I search Google for the engine rather than have any bookmark at the ready. Wifey on the other hand has MSN Japan as her home page and has both Yahoo! and Google toolbars installed. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her use the Yahoo! bar, though, but that’s another matter altogether.

I’m not sure how to interpret the results in Q1SQ1 and Q1SQ2 – why do a larger percentage of Google users have other search engines bookmarked? Is it due to more knowledge of their tools, more power users, or is it that Google does not fully meet Japanese users’ needs?
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Perhaps mainly due to the ease of embedding video into third party web pages, YouTube still has a lead of over three-to-one over its nearest competitor in the Japanese video sharing league. To find out more about how people use these sites, japan.internet.com reported on a survey by Cross Marketing Inc that looked at video file sharing.

Demographics

Over the 8th and 9th of August 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group completed a private online 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, 20.0% in their fifties.

If you want to look at Nico Nico Douga – oops, I’ve just looked at Nico Nico Douga, and new free accounts are limited to access between 2 am and 7 pm. I think their commenting system allows messages to be overlaid on videos, so if anyone knows the details, please leave a message!
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The four most frequent petty vehicular crimes I see in Japan are red light running, no adult seatbelts, not using child seats and, the focus of this article, the use of mobile phones. This was outlawed in Noverber 2004, and although the government reported a significant reduction in accidents caused by the use of mobile phones, there was some scepticism from me and others as to whether this was really due to safer driving and not just due to less reporting. So, japan.internet.com reported on the results of a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into hands-free adapters.

Demographics

Over the 15th and 16th of August 2007 320 car-driving members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample 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.

You’ll have to buy the full report, I suspect, to find out the most interesting figures, such as when driving how frequently people make or receive calls or email on the mobile phones.
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This seems a rather odd little survey, although perhaps the nature of many of these reports from japan.internet.com is that they heavily abbreviate the full research resulting in rather difficult to understand results, as seems to be the case here. This time they reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into software.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of August 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s 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, 20.0% in their fifties.

You’ll notice when you compare the categories in Q1 and Q3 that there are many well-known free software titles that fall into the Q1 options but don’t appear in Q3, with of course Linux in the Operating System category being the most obvious omission – did users categorise it as a security-related application, a general tool, a server or under the Other catch-all?
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I’m glad it’s not just me, as whenever we have a video tele-conference at work I always try to hide out of the way of the camera, and just can’t bring myself to look at my own face on screen. I can just about cope with my photo in private, but seeing myself on the big screen is just too much for me! This fact in the headline was one of the interesting facts to come out of a recent survey by Cross Marketing Inc and reported by japan.internet.com on the subject of web cameras.

Demographics

On the 18th and 19th of July 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 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.

As a cross-reference, back in October of last year MyVoice looked at video calling on mobile phones, and there they found a similar lack of enthusiasm for video calling on mobile phones.
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This is one of these surveys that catches my eye and informs and entertains me at the same time, but also frustrates me as I’d love to learn more. What are mobile phones? Toys, fashion statements, or just lumps of plastic and electronics? japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc on mobile phone obsessions. The article just presented a summary of some of the more interesting questions asked.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of June 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based survey. The 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.

Note, I translated one of these difficult to get the right nuance for Japanese words, こだわる, kodawaru, as obsess, although perhaps the English word is a bit too strong.

In Q3, looking at other people’s phones, I wonder how much is checking out the actual phone type versus checking out their dangly bits or trying to sneak a peek at their email…
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Perhaps I just don’t get enough phone calls and mail, but I’ve never had the experience of having my mobile phone battery run out on me. However, I have recently started regularly recharging my mobile at work as I got as a free gift at a conference a USB cable with multiple adaptors for recharging mobile phones and other devices. To discover what other people do about their mobile batteries, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone batteries.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 30th of May 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 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.

Although battery technology is progressing and integrated hardware reduces the power consumption required for many features, as phones sprout more and more features and the manufacturers are pressed by market demands to reduce weight, the battery is often the first component to get slimmed down.

Note that for DoCoMo at least, and perhaps the other makers too, if you have kept the same phone for over two years they will give you a new battery pack free if you ask.

Note also that I reported on a similar survey on mobile phone batteries last year.
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With keyboarding skills becoming a more and more important ability to have in the modern world, although some might argue that in Japan it is mobile phone thumbing speed that is the key, japan.internet.com recently reported on a rather interesting survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into touch-typing abilities.

Demographics

Over the 23th and 24th of May 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based survey. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% of the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% were in their twenties, 20.0% were in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I can touch-type to a certain extent, although I’m sure I’d not win many prizes for my accuracy. One result I’d have like to have seen is what keyboard layout people used; not QWERTY versus Dvorak, but for Japanese entry Romaji versus Kana input, which is basically either spelling things using the latin alphabet or spelling using the native Japanese kana alphabet.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc on one of the latest tools that has been causing something of a buzz around the English-language blogging world, namely Twitter. Twitter is an application that allows short messages to be posted to mini-blog and a group of listeners, perhaps a bit like a Web2.0 blog and RSS and instant messenger combined, with a bit of SMS thrown in for good measure.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of May 2007 Cross Marketing interviewed 300 members of its internet monitor panel. The sample was split into regular sized groups: 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. Each age group was also split evenly into 30 male and 30 female respondents.

I’ve not used Twitter and have no plans to myself, as my impression is that most of the users are people wedded to their internet connection posting about the trivial things in their daily lives with worryingly high frequency, perhaps like a grown-up version of MySpace.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on an interesting little poll conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into television at home.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 19th of April 2007 Cross Marketing interviewed 300 members of their online monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. All the respondents lived in Tokyo or the surrounding area and were mobile phone users. 50.0% were 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.

With the soon-approaching analogue switch-off on the 24th of July 2011 (why that date? I must research that!) it would seem that there is quite a bit of scope for the market in both televisions and DVD and hard disk recorders to expand as people buy them as much for the digital tuners as for the other features. My home too is still strictly analogue, but our CRT does have the required digital input plug if we decide to update the VCR alone.
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