世論 What Japan Thinks

This rather a bit too short to be really useful report published on japan.internet.com regarding goo Research’s fourth regular electronic money survey revealed that the Osaifu Keitai feature in most phones go unused.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of October 2008 1,093 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.5% were in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

Note that in Q2 Osaifu Keitai (literally Mobile Wallet) is a trademarked service of docomo, the main promoter of electronic cash, but now most phones from the three big operators come with the FeliCa chip inside, ready to work with most electronic cash providers.
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With everyone spending so long in trains every day, and there being only so much email you can write, mobile phone applets are an alternative diversion that almost all Japanese phones support. This recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this topic of mobile phone applets.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 20th of October 2008 1,076 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.8% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

When I get a new phone I tend to play the built-in applets to death, then get bored and give up, so I haven’t actually used any for over a year. Every time I see the ads I quite fancy signing up for Pakurosu, but since it is 315 yen per month, I always resist the temptation!
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Here’s a quickie survey report published and conducted by goo Research. in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into exercise habits.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of September 2008 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor pool over the age of twenty were randomly selected and completed an internet-based questionnaire. A more detailed demographics breakdown was not given.

Q1SQ1 was just a single answer question, but I’d have to answer all five, including the other category! As for school sports day sports, I’d probably go for the egg-and-spoon race once again.
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Here comes the fortieth regular cellphone upgrade needs survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 10th of October 2008 exactly 1,000 cellphone users from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.4% of the sample were male, 2.1% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 34.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, and 18.5% aged fifty or older.

In Q4 one might be surprised by seeing that just 7.6% of people rate Flash support as important, but I wonder how much of this is due to lack of awareness rather than lack of interest? The newest docomo phones now have decome-anime (decoration mail animation), which is basically simple Flash authoring, inserting your own message into an animation, similar to features currently only available through online greeting cards.
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A recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at how Japanese keep track of all five (or six, depending on what you count) of the four seasons via the weather forecast.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 3rd of October 2008 1,059 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.7% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

Just a couple of days ago I leafed through a bilingual book on questions on everyday things in Japan, with one of the questions being how the percentage of rain falling is calculated. Bascially, for the time period given it is the chance of more than 1 millimetre of rain falling within a single one hour period. There is no implication of how heavy the rain will be barring the 1 millimetre, however.
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In Japanese, an SLR is 一眼レフ, ichigan refu, very much a direct translation of Single-Lens Reflex camera. However, it can be a bit of a mouthful and the Japanese do like abbreviating things, and along with compact digital camera (which is a direct loan word from English), there are many abbreviations that people have adopted. To find out what they are, goo Research conducted a survey reported on by japan.internet.com into digital cameras.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 29th of September 2008 1,084 members of the goo Research online monitor panel successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

I usually call my point and click (a pink Lumix) a digi-camé in both Japanese and English. I’ve never really had the reason to call a digital SLR anything in Japanese, however.
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A few months ago there was a couple of articles in the US press with suspect (or just poorly-reported) statistics on cellphone literature in Japan, but at the time I didn’t have any good data to refute the stories with. However, this weekend not one, but two surveys come along, one from goo Research and one from Marsh, both reported on by japan.internet.com, on this very topic of cellphone novels.

Demographics

For the goo Research sample, between the 22nd and 25th of September 2008 1,074 people from their online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

For the Marsh sample, on the 26th of September 2008 they interviewed 300 females from their monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 21.7% were in their twenties, 51.3% in their thirties, and 27.0% in their forties.

Very surprising for me is that goo Research’s mixed sample showed a higher percentage of readership than Marsh’s young female group, although the level of enjoyment was relatively similar for both groups. The reasons for this would be interesting to investigate.
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Another mobile phone technology nearing the 50% barrier is GPS, Global Positioning System, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looking into GPS. Two days ago we saw that contactless IC chip-based electronic money had passed the 50% mark, and another article I read today about One Seg digital terrestrial television for mobile devices had also passed this milestone. (The original Japanese source is here)

Demographics

Between the 16th to 23rd of September 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.8% of the sample were male (7 or so points higher than usual, but no explanation is given why), 12.9% were in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 20.2% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, and 24.2% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never used a GPS in a portable device, but I couldn’t drive without my car navi system. I rented a Prius last month but whatever default settings they had were a bit wonky, wanting me to detour just a little too far just so I could stick to motorways. I did manage to confuse it for a bit by missing a motorway entrance and instead cruised along underneath where I should have been, but it did recover effortlessly, and I made all my destinations with the minimum of drama.

The latest revision of the Prius navigation and entertainment centre also automatically rips CDs to hard disk and labels them using the Gracenote database, but that’s another story entirely!
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According to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com a very significant threshold has been crossed, with the majority of Japanese now carrying an electronic cash-capable device, be it either in a credit card form factor or in a mobile phone, according to the third regular electronic cash survey.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 17th of September 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an online private questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 15.7% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

I have for one out of the three legs of my journey to work a ICOCA card, JR West’s version of the Suica railway pass. However, mine is used exclusively as a season ticket only; I haven’t used it as cash for at least two years. Work also allows us to use our RFID-enabled company ID to pay for lunch and at the shop, but that’s not really electronic cash, just a quick credit card payment function.

My wife uses her mobile phone a lot, however, at shops in and around the stations, but that’s technically not electronic cash as she has it linked to her credit card. I don’t know how much this blurring of roles affected the answers to the survey, however, but Q1SQ1 suggests that most people are charging their cards with cash, not having a direct link to a credit card or bank account.
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Regular readers will know that the most popular search engine in Japan is Yahoo!, with Google just a few percentage points behind, but what do people do at these sites? This recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looking at web search tried to answer these questions.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 12th of September 2008 1,060 members of the goo Research monitor panel (the report actually says goo users, but I don’t know how accurate that is) completed an online survey. 51.9% of the sample were male, 11.6% in their teens, 22.2% in their twenties, 22.0% in their thirties, 19.0% in their forties, and 25.3% aged fifty or older.

Ego-searching is looking for your own name in the search engines. Not suprisingly, lots of relevant information turns up about me since I’ve got a unique double-barrel that I use online a bit. However, my full birth name turns up absolutely zero, which is not surprising as I don’t often use my middle name.
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