世論 What Japan Thinks

My last smartphone survey for the week is this from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looking at mobile devices, the second in a regular series.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of October 2011 1,085 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

I was looking at docomo smartphones and tablets today, and I was quite surprised how cheap they are! There’s a new Panasonic P-01D out with a 3.2 inch screen that’s just about 10,000 yen to upgrade to, the 7 inch Galaxy Tab is just 3,000 yen if you pick it up as a second phone, and even a top-end 10 inch water-resistant Honeycomb tablet with LTE 4G is just a touch over 20,000 yen. The offers last until Christmas, so don’t leave it too late! I’m very tempted by the tiny Pana I mentioned, and if I use my saved-up points I can get it for just about free! If I can set up a firewall or router or the like on the phone, I can force it to use wi-fi all the time and avoid packet charges, making it in theory cheaper than my current feature phone. Here’s a video of it in action – I’ll give the pink a miss this time…

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Here’s another very interesting smartphone survey, this time looking at smartphones and privacy awareness, and conducted by goo Research.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 31st of May 2011 1,573 smartphone owning members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample had an iPhone, 47.6% an Android-based phone; 1.0% had had their smartphone for less than a month, 12.5% between one and three months, 28.3% between three and six months, 25.3% six months to a year, 22.8% for one or two years, and 10.1% more than two years. 71.9% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their twenties, 34.6% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 14.9% in their fifties, and 3.9% aged sixty or older.

I’m really surprised about the very low disclosure rate of who one works for, but it does very much ring true with what people who were sceptical of whether LinkedIn could make it in Japan said.
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With the release of the iPhone 4S in Japan, SoftBank are no longer the only mobile company offering Apple’s phone, but now au from KDDI have joined them, and this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone upgrades will not make pleasant reading for the SoftBank management.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 27th of October 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone (including smartphone) owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.6% of the sample were female, 1.2% in their teens, 11.3% in their twenties, 29.8% in their thirties, 28.0% in their forties, and 29.7% aged fifty or older.

I’m now getting much keener on a smartphone – perhaps the coming January I’ll finally make the leap?
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With recent reports of Sony and rather surprisingly Nintendo too losing money, they undoubtedly have high hopes for their next generation of consoles, but this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into games machines (the first in a new series of regular surveys) does not make good reading.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of October 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.3% aged fifty or older.

I wonder if just as people talk about a post-PC world where smartphones and tablets take the fore, are we also entering a post-console world? Zynga, the makers of FarmVille and other Facebook games are about to float at a valuation of $6 billion, and DeNA, the people who run the almost-exclusively Japanese gaming site Mobage had a turnover of about $1.5 billion (yes, dollars, not yen) last year with a profit ratio of about 50%! However, both these companies offer mainly pretty simple browser-based games using the freemium model – free to play, but with additional items available for a fee. Similarly, the iPhone and Android app stores price games very cheap and support them using either or both in-game advertising or paid-for additional items or levels. Thus, a separate console plus $30 or $40 per game looks not too good a deal.
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This seems a rather appropriate survey to translate right now, as I’m on holiday and will be soon arriving at my hotel which according to its web page has free internet; and indeed it does, although you have to phone the front desk to get a password. This seems to be the favourite location for people to connect, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into travel and the internet.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

My usual way of connecting is of course at the hotel room, but others include coffee shops, as fortunately most countries other than Japan offer free wireless. Furthermore, as my overseas travel is to conferences, I of course use the conference wireless too. Last time I was in Hong Kong I even tried to use the wifi on the airport express train, but the only way to get an access code was to dial a special number for an SNS passcode, but my phone didn’t seem to work…

The article also notes that there was not a distinction made between whether people were connecting to the internet from the hotel via their own mobile phones or from computers set up in the hotel, and they thought that might make a good survey. I would add that they also ought to ask about who brings a netbook, notebook or a tablet with them on holiday.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by goo Research, looked at 3D movies.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 11th of October 2011 1,085 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 11.6% aged sixty or older.

I have absolutely no plan to buy a 3D television, and I always try to find the 2D version of movies, although recently it’s become harder, especially trying to find the combination of both 2D and subtitled instead of dubbed versions.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into viewing advertisements on mobile phones, the second time this regular survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 13th of October 2011 1,091 mobile phone-owning (including smartphone) members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 60.7% of the sample were female, 4.0% in their teens, 25.5% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 23.3% in their forties, and 8.2% aged fifty or older.

I don’t browse anything outside of docomo’s walled garden on my mobile, but even that bungs an ugly animated gif at the top of the home page.
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goo Research, in conjunction with the electronic magazine OnDeck, took a look at cooking your own books, an expression in Japanese which refers to the activity of scanning your books to an electronic format.

Demographics

There were two distinct samples; first, the OnDeck readership was surveyed between the 12th and 20th of September 2011, with 294 people replying, then the goo Research online monitor group was surveyed over the 12th and 13th of October 2011, with 1,063 completing the survey.

As well as doing the scanning yourself at home, there are a number of companies that will do it for you. You send them a box of books, and they will scan them in and return them to you, but only after guillotining off the spine to prevent you reselling the paper editions. This service operates in a bit of a legal black hole – it may be illegal, but no-one has taken a case to court yet, as far as I am aware. Here’s a video of how to do it at home:

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With the launch of the iPhone 4S the issue of voice search has become rather a hot topic. This survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com was however conducted before the launch of the device.

Demographics

Between the 30th of September and the 4th of October 2011 1,091 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

The introduction to this survey reports that first off the mark was Microsoft following their purchase of Tellme in March of 2007, which they then added to Windows Mobile 6.5 in 2009. Next, Google introduced voice search in 2010 for Android v2.2 (Froyo), and finally Apple introduced Siri to the recently-released iPhone4 S after buying out Siri in 2010, although Siri had initially offered their app on the iPhone 3GS at a date that I cannot determine right now. Perhaps someone can ask Siri when she was born?

Here’s docomo advertising Android starring Ken Watanabe as a tablet – the voice search appears at the very end.

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This week’s new survey series is into electronic books, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com as usual.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 28th of September 2011 1,078 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

If I exclude online manuals, I’ve read exactly one electronic book, on a iPaq PDA. Actually, make that two, as I had the very dubious pleasure of reading this on a PC and had almost succeeded in forgetting about it until now.

As the price of a basic e-ink Kindle has seriously dropped, if it’s offered for a similar price in Japan I could very well pick it up myself. I wouldn’t even consider picking up an e-bookified Android tablet, not without some major subsidies to soften the blow of the loss of functionality.
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