世論 What Japan Thinks

From the fifteen regular survey by goo Research into electronic money japan.internet.com chose to focus on ownership of IC card readers and writers.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of April 2010 1,085 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

Although the security of the IC chip itself within most Japanese credit cards and mobile phones is well proven, thus by extension on the reader devices, I am unaware of how good or bad the security on the surrounding applications are. Regardless, a number of the higher-end notebook computers these days come with a built-in IC card reader chip so that online shopping checkout can be paid for by electronic money on either a mobile phone or a credit card.
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With the airwaves being saturated recently with adverts for DMM.COM, the very high number of people aware of services like DMM.COM in this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into movie viewing is not surprising at all.

Demographics

On the 6th of May 2010 1,114 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 16.1% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Recently my movie watching at home has been pretty close to zero due to a lack of time – I’m thinking we should cancel our cable subscription and just watch all the stacked-up DVDs that have been building up over the last few years. On the other hand I do go to a real cinema around once a month.
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Thanks to events such as the demos in Iran last year, the awareness of Twitter has gone through the roof, from around 12% to 95%, according to this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of April 2010 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.0% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.8% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

I’ve used Twitter once or twice on my non-smartphone using the special Japanese iMode gateway, but due to stupidly high data costs in Japan (about 1 yen per kilobyte – yes, not megabyte) it costs me about 150 yen to just log in and view my home page!
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Oops, I forgot to post this last night!

A recent survey conducted by goo Research into computers was reported on by japan.internet.com, where they chose to focus on PLC-related questions. PLC is Power Line Communication, using existing electrical circuits as network cabling.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 16th of April 2010 1,088 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.5% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

The total awareness from Q1 is 39.0%, yet last year it was 48.5%, and 51.7% two years ago. Similarly, the usage rate dropped from 2.8% to 1.4% over the space of the last year.

It’s supposed to be a good and cheap way to network and more secure than wireless, although interference when other electrical devices switch on and off is the biggest drawback.
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With the launch of the Xperia at the end of last month (March 2010) and heavy advertising on primetime television, it’s perhaps not a surprise that according to goo Research’s 51st mobile phone upgrade needs survey, as reported by japan.internet.com, that the Xperia is as popular as it is.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 14th of April 2010 1,000 mobile phone users from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were male, 1.0% in their teens, 11.5% in their twenties, 3.2% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, and 24.2% aged fifty or older.

I’ve had a play with the Xperia at a special shop they’ve opened in Osaka, and it’s quite fun to use, and the display font is much better than I imagined it would be. I quite fancy it myself, but I cannot really justify the 5,400 yen per month unlimited data plan (plus another 1,500 yen in basic service fees), with of course 40,000 yen for the handset on top.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into digital cameras.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of April 2010 1,084 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 15.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.5% aged sixty or older.

I want to buy a digital SLR, but I’m not quite sure how I would get on with it, or whether I get enough opportunities to take photos. I’m always in awe of the skills of the numerous Japan photo bloggers such as Lee at Tokyo Times, Muza-chan, i, cjw (who needs to get a coffee table book deal!), and Danny Choo to name just a few. There’s also a flickr group for photos from Japan that hopefully should be embedded here:

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japan.internet.com reported on goo Research’s fourth regular survey into consumer games machines, my favourite current goo Research series.

Demographics

Getween the 2nd and 6th of April 2010 1,059 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 28.3% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never actually heard of the torne. I know when the PS3 first came out it was seen as a backdoor way of getting Blu-ray into Japanese homes, but now, with the digital switch-over a mere 15 months away, perhaps it is too late? On the other hand, the device by definition will have a digital decoder, and the PS3 already has an analogue output, so it seems also to be being sold as a decoder. Perhaps I’ll soon see a question on this in that other current goo Research series into digital television?
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This recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, was their fourth regular (once every two months) survey into keitai novels, with keitai being the shortened Japanese word for mobile phone, and keitai novels being novels designed to be read on mobile phones, featuring shorter sentences and episodic chapters, and I presume graphical devices like emoji.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 24th of March 2010 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16/3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve never even seen a keitai novel, so in the interests of research, please wait while I check Google.

The first hit is Wild Strawberry, and looking around the books seem to be mostly written in slang, in the loose style of emails of young women. Hmm, I don’t think I’ll be bothering.
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This rather short survey from goo Ranking, in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into staggering long holidays (certainly not staggeringly-long holidays!) found quite a surprising (to me at least) amount of opposition to spreading the two annual five-day spring and autumn holidays across a number of weeks so that different regions of the country are on holiday at different times.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of March 2010 1,060 members of the goo Research monitor aged 20 or older completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Further demographics information was not provided.

I’m all for the idea as currently everything is so busy for one week, with traffic jams and airlines, hotels etc charging a premium just because they, so I just end up staying at home.

As with a lot of these surveys, I cannot really figure out the mindset of these people who oppose the idea.

Note that I suspect that the don’t knows and can’t says have been eliminated from the below results.
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With Panasonic due to start selling their 3D Viera on the 23rd of April, this recent survey from goo Research was on television in general, but the short report on japan.internet.com focused on the timely 3D aspect.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of March 2010 1,079 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, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

As a cross-reference, you might like to look at an earlier survey from iShare on the same subject.

I’m not interested in 3D television, myself. I did notice a couple of days ago in central Osaka the local cable company were promoting their upcoming 3D broadcasts, and there was quite a long queue in front of the demostration stand, but perhaps people were just lining up for whatever freebies they were handing out…
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