Here’s another of these surveys that I find particularly interesting, looking at perhaps rather trivial matters, but giving answers that I hope one day may prove useful, although where exactly, I just don’t know! This time it was japan.internet.com reporting on a survey by goo Research into mobile phones in general, but in this report they chose to focus on dirty screens on said mobiles.
Demographics
Between the 11th and 15th of October 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample was male, 17.5% in their teens, 19.8% in their twenties, 17.2% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.9% in their sixties.
This survey coincided with the release of a new range of mobile phone screen cleaning mascots from Strapya (very reasonable prices and shipping costs; help What Japan Thinks by buying your cuddly toys through the link above), so join the 10% or so of Japanese cell phone users with cute cleaners! I personally have a Monokuro Boo cubic pig cuddly cleaner on my phone, but I actually just wipe on my sleeve. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m still actually to sign up to any SNS so please don’t ask me for mixi invites, although recently I nearly joined MySpace due to hearing about some punk from my school days. To find out how the average Japanese ends up on mixi or other SNSs (Social Networking Services), japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research, their 9th regular survey on SNS.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 4th of October 2007 1,086 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample was male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.
I’ve been skipping recent editions of this survey as the reported statistics have not been terribly interesting. However, this time I think the data is worth reporting. I find it interesting that nearly two-thirds of the current users have not actually invited anyone else to join, although given the fact that mixi is so well-established as the market leader, like a pyramid scheme once the market is saturated those at the bottom run out of people to invite as most people who are interested in joining have already joined, perhaps. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve read a grand total of exactly one book on a PDA, and zero on mobile phones. I just found it too tiring squinting at a small screen, and as I’m not on an unlimited plan, downloading material to my mobile phone is prohibitively expensive. To find out what Japan thinks, let’s look at a survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research on the topic of electronic books.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 20th of September 2007 1,088 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample was male, 17.3% in their teens, 19.9% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.0% aged sixty or older.
Note that DoCoMo and SoftBank (and most likely au too) have free manga libraries for their customers, if you have an unlimited contract and looking for something to download and practice your Japanese on. Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t looked at video games for a while, so I was glad to find this survey from goo Research on video game usage by children. Video games cover handhelds, TV-connected games and even PC-based gaming.
Demographics
Between the 25th of June and 13th of July 2007 1,165 elementary school children (or people claiming to be children) responded to a public questionnaire available on the Kids goo web site. The sample was 60.0% girls, 3.4% in first year of elementary school (ages six or seven), 5.0% in second year, 9.9% in third year, 20.3% in forth year, 26.9% in fifth year, and 34.6% in sixth year (ages eleven or twelve). Note that since this is a public internet-based survey there will definite sampling bias.
There’s so much great data in this survey! Q4SQ is perhaps my favourite; based on my casual observations, not surprisingly the DS totally dominates everything else. However, the other new portable, the PSP, is played less than the ancient Famicon and Super Famicon. I’m surprised that these two machines did so well; is this due to parents being cheap, to them having less worries about graphic violence in the older titles, not wanting to spoil the kids on photo-realism, or do kids really choose themselves to play these machines?
This topic seemed a little dull when I first picked up this report to translate, but after a little web searching I found some rather interesting information related to a survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com on the topic of mobile phones, and on non-standard designs in particular.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 14th of September 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the group was male, 17.6% in their teens, 19.1% in their twenties, 15.8% in their thirties, 17.1% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
Did you know that four years ago NTT DoCoMo launched the WRISTOMO, a wristwatch-styled mobile phone? Or even more interestingly, SMS Technology Australia have just released this month a real wristwatch-sized mobile phone, the rather uninspiringly-named M500 with MP3, video, BlueTooth and Java all stuffed into a 60 gramme package. Read the rest of this entry »
The last time I looked at Wikipedia (just two days ago it was), it was wrong, and in addition the official building name is actually HEP FIVE, all in capitals, I believe. To see how the Japanese react to Wikipedia, japan.internet.com reported on the third regular monthly survey on Wikipedia conducted by goo Research.
Demographics
Between the 3rd and 7th of September 2007 1,078 members of goo Research’s online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 28.0% aged fifty or older.
Just to stand on my soapbox for a minute, I think bloggers who link to Wikipedia are just being lazy. One gets no brownie points for linking to it, and in fact you are perhaps weakening your own article and strengthening Wikipedia in the search engine rankings. Conversely, if one links to another blogger who appears more knowledgeble on the subject, you are making contact with someone human, leaving a trackback in their blog that might result in a couple of new visitors to your site, and you may find the blogger will link back to you at a later date to return the favour.
In Q1SQ2, I think “other” is the correct answer! Wikipedia is by design unverified and unverifiable, so to ask the question implies a misunderstanding of the concept behind it. Read the rest of this entry »
With the analogue switch-off coming ever closer, and with awareness campaigns being conducted on television, newsprint, and even in English on the internet, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research on the topic of television.
Demographics
Between the 7th and 10th of September 2007 1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52/6% were male, 16.9% were in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.
I’m still not ready for digital broadcasting. My television has the required digital input, but we have no digital tuner. My current thinking is to buy a hard disk-based recorder with built-in tuner, or even take up my cable operator’s deal of a low-rental recorder offered with their digital service. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s another look at cell phone One Seg, this time by goo Research as reported by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Between the 31st of August and the 3rd of September 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% were male, 17.3% in their teens, 20.1% in their twenties, 17.0% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older.
I’ve posted a number of One Seg digital terrestrial television surveys recently, so I suppose there is not much terribly new here, but with more polls and more data points saying roughly the same thing, one can be more confident about the accuracy of the data.
An interesting extra fact from this report was that on the 16th of August 2007 au announced that they had made their 5 millionth contract for a One Seg-compatible phone. Read the rest of this entry »
With mobile phones becoming an essential item for parents to give their children, and with mobile phone companies advertising child-tracking services, it would be interesting to look at a recent article published by japan.internet.com on the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into children using mobile phones.
Demographics
Between the 16th and 20th of August 2007 1,077 members of goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample was male, 23.6% in their twenties, 22.0% in their thirties, 21.2% in their forties, 20.2% in their fifties, and 13.0% aged sixty or older.
I rather like the current au advertisement for their child-tracking service, so I present it here for your enjoyment.
With the megapixel count in mobile phone cameras getting ever higher and the functions available on the phones ever increasing, goo Research, as reported by japan.internet.com, performed a survey to find out about cell phone camera settings.
Demographics
Between the 24th and 27th of August 2007 1,088 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample was male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.
I’d love to see more detailed figureson how the awareness and use of the macro mode, or close-up mode corresponds with use of QR Codes. As far as I am aware, many phones have a dedicated normal mode/close-up mode switch, and when one selects QR Code mode, a big message pops up reminding one to switch the camera into the correct mode. I’ve never understood why there has to be a switch for this or why the phone cannot automatically go into close-up mode when reading these barcodes. Perhaps the DoCoMo official specifications explicitly require such a feature, perhaps due to someone having patents they don’t want to licence regarding automation of this feature? Read the rest of this entry »
I’m still actually to sign up to any SNS so please don’t ask me for mixi invites, although recently I nearly joined MySpace due to hearing about 
I’ve read a grand total of exactly one book on a PDA, and zero on mobile phones. I just found it too tiring squinting at a small screen, and as I’m not on an unlimited plan, downloading material to my mobile phone is prohibitively expensive. To find out what Japan thinks, let’s look at a survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research on the topic of 
I haven’t looked at video games for a while, so I was glad to find this survey from goo Research on 
This topic seemed a little dull when I first picked up this report to translate, but after a little web searching I found some rather interesting information related to a survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com on the topic of 
The last time I looked at Wikipedia (just two days ago it was), it was 
With the analogue switch-off coming ever closer, and with awareness campaigns being conducted on television, newsprint, and even 
With the megapixel count in mobile phone cameras getting ever higher and the functions available on the phones ever increasing, goo Research, as reported by japan.internet.com, performed a survey to find out about 
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