世論 What Japan Thinks

Last month’s earthquake resulted in just about all the trains around Tokyo being cancelled, so in a recent survey from goo Research into the day the earthquake occurred, japan.internet.com’s report focused on how people got home.

Demographics

Between the 31st of March and the 2nd of April 2011 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group who lived in either Tokyo or the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa and Saitama completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

In an earlier survey from iShare, I did express surprise that about 85% claimed they could walk home, but this survey does seem to back up that figure.

I know that one of my fellow bloggers got stuck in Disneyland after the earthquake, but he didn’t try walking home from there…
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With GPS becoming standard in most of the higher-end mobile phones these days, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at GPS devices in general.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 29th of September 2009 1,023 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I don’t have GPS on my rather old and low-end phone, but I cannot really say I desperately want any of the features listed in Q2SQ. A walking history might be nice, as a few phones these days also have pedometers, so recording not just your paces but also your speed and distance walked might be useful for tracking one’s exercise patterns. Location-based search in itself is not compelling, but add in functionality such as only showing your favourite genres of restaurants, highly-rated locations, or places with discount coupons and then it becomes more useful, although whether or not I’d use it is debatable!
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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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Having just translated a look at GPS functionality according to JR Tokai Express Research, along comes another survey by NEPRO JAPAN also on Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality, conducted by means of a public survey made available through the menuing systems of DoCoMo iMode, Yahoo! Keitai, and au EZweb mobile phone portal sites, available over the 8th and 9th of March.

Demographics

3,897 people self-selected themselves; 58% were female, 3% in their teens, 37% in their twenties, 43% in their thirties, and 17% aged 40 or older.

Note than in the previous survey about 21% said they had used mobile phone GPS functionality, but here 30% had. The difference can perhaps be explained by the fact that this age group was younger, self-selecting, and conducted through mobile phones rather than PC internet, therefore this survey would most likely attract a higher percentage of people with newer phones, thus more GPS users.
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Recently, japan.internet.com reported on some research conducted by JR Tokai Express Research regard mobile phones with Global Positioning System (GPS) features. The research was conducted between the 20th and 22nd of March amongst their online monitor community.

Demographics

330 people successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample was male, 22.1% in their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 7.9% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

Note that in the current model line-ups, all of the top-end DoCoMo’s (the 903i series) have GPS, as do most of the au models, and according to the SoftBank web site, the following models have GPS: Toshiba’s 911T, 910T, 904T, 813T, 812T, 811T, and 810T and Sharp’s 904SH. Checking a previous survey on the Spring 2007 model line-up, only two of the Toshiba phones above are new models. According to a directive from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, from April of this year all new 3G phone models must have GPS capability built-in, so it seems that SoftBank has quite a lot of work to do.

Also note that the “Anshin Navi” service mentioned in the Q1SQ2 refers to a service by au that allows parents to track their children, or more correctly, their children’s mobile phone. DoCoMo also have a similar service available through their Sanyo SA800i phone.
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NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey that they conducted into mobile phones with GPS functionality. They conducted the respondents by means of an open survey available through the menu systems of the three main phone companies’ web systems, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, Vodafone (now Softbank) live! (which has just changed its name “Yahoo! Keitai”, judging by the advertisements I’ve seen), and au and TU-KA’s EZweb. Over 17 hours during the 7th and 8th of September 3,608 people successfully completed the survey; 58% were female, 2% in their teens, 35% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

GPS is Global Positioning System, a system for locating where you currently are based on triangulation with satellites. I’ve heard it doesn’t work so well in the shadows of tall buildings or of course underground, so one would think that the use in Japan is rather limited. However, there do seem to be a number of software tools that build around the GPS system, from walking navigation systems to substitutes for car navigation via, of course, keeping track of your children.
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