世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com reported that in the middle of October JR Tokai Express Research interviewed 330 people from its monitor panel on the matter of usage of bulletin board sites. Of the sample, 74.8% were male, 14.8% in their twenties, 41.2% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties. Note that one of the features of JR Tokai’s monitor pool is that they have a large percentage of business men, due in part to the fact that completing these surveys awards points for discounts on the Bullet Train.

2 Channel is a cess pit, quite frankly. I’ve visited there a few times myself, but the combination of heavy slang, both ordinary slang and 2-chan specifics, the general level of vitreol that anonymity promotes, and the utter ugliness of the layout makes me soon give up in disgust.
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Today, japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into browsers installed on corporate computers. 330 people from their monitor pool employed in private or public enterprises successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.0% of the sample was male, 12.4% in their twenties, 42.1% in their thirties, 30.9% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

The figures for Internet Explorer are spectacularly high. Dropping those with no browser or no computer and the don’t knows, almost 98% of users may be running IE, and even including all the don’t knows still leaves at best (or is it at worst?) just under 90% definitely with Internet Explorer. One reason, of course, is that many corporate intranet applications may require a specific browser, as my employer’s does. Note that Sleipnir is just an Internet Explorer shell, although Gen Kanai’s blog informs me that it can be switched to use the Firefox/Gecko engine instead.

For the open source Mozilla project, at best there are 54 identifiable users, or 18.9% of those who know their browser, but that is assuming that the Netscape, Firefox and Mozilla user groups do not overlap, and of course that the Netscape category doesn’t include people using a pre-open source 4.x (or even earlier!) version.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into losing portable electronic equipment. Towards the end of September they interviewed 330 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internet survey. 73.0% were male, 15.2% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 32.1% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and just 0.9% in their sixties.

This survey was probably insired by the recent survey carried out in Europe into losing electronic equipment at airports, which found that a lot of people were willing to just ditch their mobile phone and get a better model through their insurance. With such an insurance scheme being rare in Japan, and with people perhaps more attached to their mobile as a fashion statement rather than as just a tool, if the amount of mascots, stickers and ring tones on even a serious businessman’s phone are anything to go by.
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japan.internet.com published the results of the latest survey by JR Tokai Express Research, conducted at the end of September into the usage of video contents on mobile phones and other portable devices. They interviewed 330 people from their internet monitor panel. 72.1% were male, 18.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

I’m still looking for my ideal video playback device; around iPod Nano size, but with a screen covering all of one face. Battery life would need to be around four hours, or two hours plus external battery pack for emergencies, although two hours is perhaps borderline. I’ll be buying a new phone, a P702iD, which apparently has video playback from SD card, but as to the quality, I’ll have to wait and see. I’d love to be able to download on my PC the latest BBC news overnight and have an SD card waiting for me in the morning loaded with the news sized to the mobile’s screen. There is apparently iChannel that does this for you for a fee, but the transmission charges would make it unfeasable, I fear.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into spyware counter-measures. They interviewed 330 people employed in public or private enterprises (why they limited it like that, I don’t know!), with 81.8% of the sample male, 12.7% in their twenties, 40.9% in their thirties, 31.8% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their sixties.

One thing that isn’t clear is whether or not the anti-spyware tools are part of an anti-virus package, a firewall, or a specialised checking tool. Personally, I use, and strongly recommend, Spybot – Search & Destroy, and to some extent suggest AdAware as a secondary tool. I also recommend that Windows users ditch Explorer and try Opera instead.
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japan.internet.com published the results of a survey carried out in the middle of September by JR Tokai Express Research into how people back up data at home. They interviewed 330 people employed in private or public enterprises; 82.4% were male, 13.0% in their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

I, like almost half in this survey, back up my important stuff (mostly photos) to CD-R on a semi-regular basis. Actually, last month I almost had a back up muck-up when wifey’s install of Outlook Express suddenly lost all its address book after she tried to add a new address and I had been rather remiss about backing it up recently. It turned out, however, to be a bug in a recent Microsoft security update, which fortunately is easily resolved by following the procedure described in the linked Knowledge Base article.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into how people exchange mobile phone numbers and email addresses. 330 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online survey; 62.7% of the group was male, 15.5% in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

Although the infra-red connection is probably the surest way to exchange data, one problem is, if my experiences are anything to go by, people forget how to use the feature! There is one general “Receive infrared” menu option, but everyone seems to forget where it is; it would make more sense when you select the “Add new contact” option to have a sub-menu saying “Receive data from infra-red”. Coupled with that, there should be a semi-automated exchange. Actually, it might be better to add to the “Display own number” screen an “Exchange via infra-red”, so if both parties select that screen, the send and receive can occur at the same time.

I’ve probably now given away a patentable idea that my employers could have used!
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japan.internet.com today published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into podcasting. They interviewed 331 people from their monitor pool, 87.6% male, employed in private or public enterprises. 7.3% were in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 36.3% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

I would be in the ex-users category, myself; even though this blog has been featured on three podcasts, the latest of them being Japundit’s podcast, Japan Talk, I have to admit I’ve not listened to the last two, and I in fact ditched my Sony hard disk player recently, but Panasonic’s recent announcement of their SD800N digital audio player with noise-cancelling headphones I could perhaps be persuaded to try again.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into issues regarding television, including the upcoming switch-over to digital terrestrial broadcasting. They interviewed by means of a private internet-based questionnaire 330 members of their monitor panel; 59.7% were male, 20.3% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 4.8% in their sixties.

For my readers who might not have heard the news, on July 24th, 2011, all analogue terrestrial television broadcasting will be switched off. Most of the main population centres are already covered by digital broadcasting, and most of the new televisions either come with decoders built-in, or have ports (isn’t it a D-4) that allow a separate decoder box to be attached and full high-vision enjoyed, I believe. However, I cannot find any English site that describes what box might be necessary, and the main Japanese site, sponsored, I believe, by most of the major electrical manufacturers, seems keener to persuade you that you need a whole new television rather than just a wee box of tricks. If anyone knows of a clear English explanation of the whole affair, please let me know and I’ll add a link.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of マンガ喫茶, Manga kissa, or comic cafes. They interviewd 330 people from their monitor pool, 60.6% male, 1.5% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 33.6% in their thirties. 25.5% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 7.6% in their sixties.

Manga cafes are to be found all over the big cities, many offering very cheap prices (if you don’t overstay your welcome) for access to not just their huge stack of comics and magazines, but also computers, showers, DVDs, and even private cubicles for one or two, if you’re after a cheap and private location for a date.

Q1: Have you ever used a manga cafe? (Sample size=330)

Yes (to Q2)	43.0%
No, but I know what they are	54.2%
Don’t know what they are	2.7%

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