世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a survey from goo Reseach with an interesting focus, terminals in western Japan, in particular those in Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 13th of August 2010 1,625 members of the goo Research monitor panel who lived either within 20 kilometres of the centre of Osaka, in Hiroshima City, or Fukuoka City completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 1,087 were from Osaka, 273 from Hiroshima, and 265 from Fukuoka, and in total 53.4% were female, 0.7% in their teens, 12.9% in their twenties, 34.2% in their thirties, 31.0% in their forties, and 21.2% aged fifty or older.

Depsite going to the Osaka area to shop once a month or so, the number of Asian tourists does not really register on me, perhaps because it’s more the Westerners that catch my eye!
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I can’t go anywhere in Europe or America without bumping into a Fairtrade product, usually coffee or tea, but as this recent survey from goo Research into Fairtrade found that even awareness of the system was pretty thin on the ground.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of August 2010 2,350 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and similarly the age groups were evenly split with 20.0% in each of the age bands from twenties to the over-sixties.

I did reference Fairtrade once before, and I can remember somewhere seeing a Fairtrade logo on perhaps a chocolate product; certainly not a speciality brand nor a eco-brand, just a pretty normal mass-market product.
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This survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at keitai (mobile phone) novels, a genre of writing designed to be read on a mobile phone, and often written on them too. Common features include short sentences, paragraphs and chapters, and a casual writing style featuring emoticons and graphical emoji icons. This is the 6th time this approximately bi-monthly survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Over the 31st of August and 1st of September 2010 1,112 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 11.4% aged sixty or older.

In June, the fifth time this survey was conducted, 5.5% had read keitai novels on smartphones, and in April, the fourth time this survey was conducted and the first time the smartphone answer was highlighted, 3.8% had read keitai novels on smartphones, thus smartphone readership is slowly creeping up. However, there was no data supplied regarding smartphone ownership, but I would suspect that there would be quite a strong correlation.
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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.
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And they’re also invisible to many of you lot, judging by my data! I mention this as today’s survey is from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into internet advertisements, with this report focusing on the contextual kind.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of August 2010 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 17.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 26.9% aged fifty or older.

I personally think that most the people who say they haven’t see any contextual adverts in blogs on rews stories are mistaken – many popular news sites run adverts not just in the sidebars, but also have blocks right in the middle of stories, and I feel confident in saying that far less than 30% of the sample are running ad blockers.
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Today’s survey from goo Ranking looked at the matter of what changes in one’s partner do people feel after a year of dating, for both men looking at their girlfriends and women looking at their boyfriends.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of July 2010 1,159 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% of the sample were female, 12.4% in their teens, 21.1% in their twenties, 28.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 6.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

It’s interesting that most of the events listed are rather negative. For me, I think all apply to the wife and me. However, it only took me two months to do number 4…
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If you’re a learner of Japanese, or just wanting to get hold of classics of Japanese literature, the free repository Aozora is a good place to start, but judging by this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into Aozora, it’s not that well-known.

Demographics

Over the 19th and 20th of August 2010 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.15 in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Despite having said that everybody should read stuff off Aozora, I’ve read a grand total of one book from there. My excuse is that I don’t have a decent e-book reader; however there must be a decent solution for Japanese feature phones which I ought really to investigate!
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A recent survey by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at IT-related technical terms.

Demographics

Between the 30th of July and the 3rd of August 2010 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.1 aged sixty or older.

At work I often hear technical terms being bandied around that I think people either don’t understand, have misunderstood, or even worse, have taken on a specific meaning throughout the company not really related to the original definition. My two pet hates are “cloud” for “hetrogeneous network” and “black box” for “immutable interfaces”.
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A recent very detailed survey from goo Research, in conjuction with social media consultants Looops Communications, took a look at corporate Twitter accounts.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of July 2010 315 members of the goo Research online monitor group who used a corporate Twitter account as part of their job completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Sex and age demographics were not reported as they were not particularly significant; instead company size and industry was reported. 32.1% worked in companies of under 10 employees, 27.0% between 10 and 99 employees, 21.0% between 100 and 999 employees, 19.0% with 1,000 or more employees, and 1.0% just didn’t know. 22.9% were in manufacturing, 10.2% in distribution or small shops, 5.4% in finance, 55.9% in service industries, and 5.7% other.

Note that although the sample is small, all the respondents were corporate Tweeters, so the accuracy of the data should be high.

My employer just released a new corporate social media hub site, combining Twitter and YouTube feeds. There might also be a blog, but I’ll be surprised if it is anything other than just a press release archive. I don’t think there’s an active mixi account, and there’s certainly no Facebook account for the Japanese side.
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Around two in five of the online population questioned here to be precise have heard of it, although usage of PayPal is still very low according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 28th of July and the 1st of Augut 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I’ve bought from the US, the UK and Australia through PayPal, although it’s always for software or services. My most frequent transactions are with Namecheap for domain name purchase – I can’t recommend them enough, especially if like me you’d got fed up with GoDaddy’s upselling every time you try to make a simple transaction. If you do decide to use them, don’t forget that they also have an official coupon code blog where you can get a few cents or dollars off each transaction.
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