世論 What Japan Thinks

With the Japanese market getting frankly rather crowded, with new electronic money services being launched every other week it seems, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research on the matter of Osaifu Keitai, or mobile phone electronic wallets.

Demographics

Between the 31st of May and the 2nd of June 2007 1,093 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.2% aged sixty or older.

Most new mobile phones are equipped with the FeliCa chip, the RFID electronics from Sony that powers almost all the smart cards in Japan, so it is perhaps not terribly surprising that the awareness of Osaifu Keitai is so high. I’ve actually never owned a phone with the chip, however.
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Sadville, as The Register is wont to call it, will be released on a mostly unsuspecting Japanese audience this summer. Although some Japanese companies have already set up virtual shop in the Second Life metaverse, with the new headquarters for mixi (the giant Japanese Social Networking Service) even featuring on prime-time news, until now only an English-langauge client has been available for Japanese users. In antcipation of the imminent client release, japan.internet.com reported on the start of a new series of surveys by goo Research on this very topic, Second Life.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of May 2007 goo Research interviewed 1,102 members of its internet monitor group. 53.0% of the sample was male, 17.0% in their teens, 20.9% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 16.8% in their forties, and 27.3% aged fifty or older.

I won’t be found in Second Life, as my rather ancient PC does not have the required horsepower, and I have enough going on in my First Life to not require an escape to a Second.

New visitors might also be interested in a survey on virtual world English lessons and an awareness study on Second Life.

It also seems that Sony plan to release their own similar world, called “Home”, and TransCosmos and other companies are planning one called “meet-me”.
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goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiurin Shimbun, published the results of a survey conducted into youth and volunteering and pets. This is the second time there’s been a strange combining of topics by goo Research; last time it was love and comedy.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of April 2007 550 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private questionnaire. There was an exactly 50:50 split between the sexes, and 35% of the respondents were students, 31% in full time employment, and 11% fulltime homemakers. The occupation (or lack thereof) of the remaining 23% was not reported.

Looking at the results, it is nice to see that a majority have some degree of interest in volunteer activities, with a large minority willing to take part in them. Through the union at work I occasionally see calls for volunteers for river bank clearing, etc and whilst I have an interest in that, I really do not want to do anything for the union as they do very little for me. Last year in fact they tried to get me to volunteer (there is an almost-obligatory volunteering system) to take part in a campaign to get people to vote.
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japan.internet.com reported on the start of a new series of regular surveys being conducted by goo Research on the subjet of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Demographics

Over the 14th and 15th of May 2007, goo Research interviewed by means of a private internet-based questionnaire 1,087 members of its monitor panel. 47.1% of the sample was female, 11.7% in their teens, 21.3% in thier twenties, 19.4% in their thirties, 18.4% in their forties, and 29.2% in their fifites.

I think my opinion of Wikipedia is best expressed by the Wikipedia Nofollow WordPress plugin I developed. I feel it pollutes search results as bloggers tend to lazily quote it as it is the handiest reference, reinforcing its strength and putting it on top of Google searches for far too many keywords. In addition, with its nofollow policy, it doesn’t acknowledge its sources in the eyes of search engines, thus strengthening its position in the search engine optimisation wars.
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goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, published the results of a very timely and interesting poll on the topic of, as it is known in Japanese, Akachan Post, Baby Post, or a place to drop off babies anonymously. The first in Japan opened at the Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto just last month ago, and has already received one rather inappropriate delivery.

Demographics

The demographics for this survey are not terribly well-reported. All that is given is that between the 27th and 30th of April 2007, 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor group aged 20 or above successfully completed a private online questionnaire.

This survey is a little short, but I was surprised by nearly two-thirds supporting the baby drop-off services, and nearly half the sample wishing in fact to see more Akachan Posts. I was pleased to see that people consider education the best way of managing the problem of abandoned children.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research on the subject of email.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 19th of May 2007 1,084 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.1% of the sample was male, 16.9% in their teens, 19.6% in their twenties, 18.2% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 17.1% in their fifties, and 11.2% aged sixty or older.

I have at least five main mail addresses, or eight if I include three mainly spam-collecting Gmail accounts, although all these accounts get read through Becky!. Spam is probably about 25 per day (Gmail silently swallows some huge amount, I suspect), although if I only count those missed by SpamAssassin, it’s closer to five to ten.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into digital camera storage issues.

Demographics

1,080 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based survey between the 20th and 21st of April 2007. 51.9% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.8% in their twenties, 17.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.6% aged sixty or older.

My current photo store comes to around 10 gigabytes, with most of it backed up to CD. I was suprised by the large number of people using external hard disks, but with prices dropping I suppose it makes for rapid and flexible backup when compared to CDs or DVDs.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s 31st regular mobile phone upgrade needs survey.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 28th of April 2007 exactly 1,000 members of goo Research’s online monitor group who were mobile phone users successfully completed an online questionnaire. 54.0% were female, 2.3% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 41.3% in their thirties, 23.1% in their forties, and 14.9% aged fifty or older.

With the launch of NTT DoCoMo’s 904i series of phones having taken place just four or five days before this survey was conducted, the awareness of the new models seems very high! This new series’ main features seem to be two phone lines in the one handset – not a new feature to the mobile world, but the first time a full model range has suported it – and Napster support for unlimited music downloads. This feature also was previously available in some of the 903i phones, but now for the first time all the phones in te one range support it.

Looking at the answers to Q3, it seems the Sharp AQUOS brand is still strong.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted between the 26th and 28th of April by goo Research into the trustworthiness of internet information.

Demographics

1,041 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample was male, 18.9% in their teens, 22.8% in their twenties. 19.9% in their thirties, 19.4% in their forties, and 19.0% in their fifties.

The results here really took me aback! Commercial blogs, which by definition are trying to sell you stuff, top the charts, whereas CEO blogs are the least trusted, even though the CEO has a legal obligation (I hope, at least) to tell the truth (or at least not lie) or face prison whereas commercial blogs are trying to sell you stuff and will always tell you how they are better than brand X.

Note that Q1 should really be phrased as “Have you ever obtained information that you determined was incorrect?”

Sadly, this time the presented results fail to directly mention anything about trust in Wikipedia.
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Recently japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into shareholder meetings.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 20th of April 2007, goo Research got 1,083 successfully completed replies to their private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% were male, 24.8% in their twenties, 22.5% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 20.7% in their fifties, and 10.2% in their sixties.

Share trading is something I have yet to do in Japan, despite having a company savings scheme, so I cannot really comment much on the results of this survey. Of course one cannot mention shareholder meetings in Japan without mentioning the 総会屋, soukaiya, yakusa-connected extortionists who seek payment in return for not disrupting the company’s AGM. Many companies hold their AGM on the same day to hopefully reduce the chance of being targeted by the mob.

I was surprised by almost one in five shareholders having attended an AGM or the like. Perhaps the more detailed survey results indicates why many people choose to attend. Do companies give away gifts or have food laid on for attendees?
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