世論 What Japan Thinks

As a sort-of follow-up to last month’s look at office software at home, we now look with goo Research at office software at work, as reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 19th of August 2011 1,084 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

We’re all Microsoft Office at work, and as it’s only Office 2003 and as more and more people are now moving to 2007 or 2010, it’s getting worse and worse with forward compatibility, and indeed just last week I had a file that would crash Word if I double-clicked it on the file, but if I loaded it up from the File Open diaglog all the text would be completely invisible.
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With it looking like we have managed to survive the summer without a single power cut in Japan, it may be a good time to look at a survey from goo Research conducted in July on saving electricity.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 7th of July 2011 1,080 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were male, 19.5% in their teens, 20.3% in their twenties, 19.9% in their thirties, 20.2% in their forties, and 20.1% aged fifty or older.

The survey title in the original Japanese is usually translated (as I did above) as “saving electricity”, but as a pedant I’d like to point out that you cannot really save electricity, but instead just cut down on the usage. We tried to cut down this summer by using less air conditioning and relying on a simple fan a bit more, but quite frankly I see little difference in our monthly bills.

At work we have various changes, but the stupidest one was to unplug the rechargers for our company mobile phones during peak hours. However, the company phones have hopeless batteries, so if you forgot to plug back in before a long weekend, for example, you could come back to a dead phone that has returned to factory settings. On top of that, it just takes one person to bang their head on the underside of the desk and you’ll have the Health and Safety people all over you. This activity lasted exactly two days in our team.
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Another regular survey from goo Research resets back to one, but at least this time there is a valid reason for it. The subject was terrestrial digitial television, and since just over a month ago analogue broadcasts were turned off (except for in the earthquake affected prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate) it seems a good excuse to make the change.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 17th of August 2011 1,090 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.
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Another detailed survey from goo Research, this time looking at information device usage amongst older folk, the third time they have conducted their survey.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 22nd of June 2011, 8,393 older members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 76.6% of the sample were male, 48.6% of the men and 66.5% of the women were aged between 60 and 64 years old, 24.6% of the men and 21.6% were aged between 65 and 69 years old, 17.2% of the men and 8.7% of the women were aged between 70 and 74 years old, 7.9% of the men and 2.6% of the women were aged between 75 and 79 years old, and 1.6% of the men and 0.7% of the women were 80 years old or older.

Although the number of smartphone and tablet users is relatively low, I was suprised to see that between 40% and 50% have downloaded at least one paid app. It would have been very interesting to see what sort of applications they are paying for; newspapers or electronic books would be the stereotypical image I have, but what is the reality?
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An interesting survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into office software on home computers found that free suites are more popular.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 14th of August 2011 1,065 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Note that I suspect that a number of people who got Microsoft Office or Works bundled with their system may have reported this as free software.

For myself, I occasionally use Open Office (Libre Office). I mostly use their Excel clone from that suite.
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A recent detailed survey report from goo Research was their third six-monthly look at the media usage situation.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 30th of May 2011 1,499 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, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I use both TV and PC internet every day, both for longer than I’d like to admit to!
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goo Research started yet another new survey series, according to this report from japan.internet.com, this time looking at shopping site use by mobile phone users.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 10th of August 2011 1,098 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile-based (including smartphone) survey. 58.3% of the sample were female, 3.8% in their teens, 27.8% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, 23.5% in their forties, and 9.1% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never done any mobile shopping, for all the three reasons listed, and I could probably fill out the “other” answer with a number of additional reasons.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at IP simulcast radio. If you’re not sure what that is, join the slim majority of Japanese who don’t know either.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of July 2011 1,086 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, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

IP simulcast radio is simultaneously broadcasting radio over the airwaves and the internet. The BBC don’t call it anything special with just a “Listen Live” label, but the main Japanese rebroadcaster/aggregator, radiko.jp (note it checks your IP address to give you your local stations only, and only for Tokyo and Osaka areas) has “IP simulcast radio” as part of its logo.

Talking of the area lock of radiko, after the earthquake they removed the area block so everyone could listen. And then reintroduced the block on the first of April.

Finally, NHK will start simulcasting their Radio 1 and Radio 2 channels from next month.
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I was hoping to have a holiday from the blog, but japan.internet.com only had a long weekend and published a report on an interesting survey from goo Research into flash marketing (time-limited offers), with the focus on coupon sites.

Demographics

Over the 2nd and 3rd of August 2011 1,100 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I’ve never used a coupon site myself, but I’ve read enough about how it doesn’t make sense for many businesses that I don’t really feel I want to be part of bankrupting small businesses. However, looking at the Groupon Japan web site, here’s possibly one offer that might work due to extras (err, extra drinks I mean!), an Osaka ladyboy show.
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A recent survey from goo Research into electronic money used a rather narrow demographic of young male salarymen to produce its results.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 28th of July 2011 1,006 male members of the goo Reseach monitor group who lived in the Tokyo metropolitan area and were in full-time employment and had credit cards completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 100% male, with 25.1% aged between 30 and 34, 25.1% between 35 and 39, 25.0% between 40 and 44, and 24.8% between 45 and 49 years old.

My main credit card also works for electronic cash and my train ticket in postpay mode. I’m also very aware of gathering points, as at Hankyu group shops they print out your current point totals on the card when you shop. For my other credit cards, points are only printed on the monthly statements, so I tend to ignore them.

Just as a note, prepay systems are where you fill up your card with cash (some systems automatically debit your credit card) then spend the balance sitting in the card. Postpay systems are more like ordinary credit cards; there is no cash in your card, and at the end of the month you get a statement summarising all your transactions. I’m a postpay fan myself.
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