世論 What Japan Thinks

If you want to find a reason to dislike Japan, visiting 2 channel is probably the best place to start. This recent survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the 2 channel bulletin board system found an awful lot of people use the place.

Demographics

On the 10th of July 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 74.9% of the sample were male, 7.3% in their twenties, 40.2% in their thirties, 38.1% in their forties, and 14.5% in their fifties.

The popular image of 2 channel amongst the portion of the gaijin internet users that I am familiar with is of it as a place of unfettered right-wing strongly-nationalistic hate-mongerers. A standing joke, based very much on fact, is that whenever a Japanese person commits a headline-worthy crime, the 2 channelers will dig up a Korean ancestor for them so as to deny the wrong-doer is one of “us”.

Having said that, I don’t really know what percentage of 2 channel (by volume or by frequency of access) is of that reprehensible kind. Do any of my readers have a feel for this?

Oh, and 2 channel is blocked at work by our firewall proxy, I think. I can’t check as they’ve just recently started asking people about why they accessed blocked sites, and I don’t fancy trying to explain that away!
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This rather interesting look at electronic item purchasing was conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 29th and 30th of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.0% of the sample were female, 2.1% in their teens, 9.4% in their twenties, 46.1% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties,5.2% in their sixties, and 4.8% aged seventy or older.

My last computer was bought at the giant Yodobashi Camera in Umeda Osaka, as my wife suddenly took a fancy to upgrading and I didn’t think she’d like to be dragged down to Den-Den Town to circle the bargain stores looking for the cheapest bargain. Our camera was similarly bought there, but my current mobile phone came from work; although we make the things at the office, staff discount amounts to no more than 5% off the new models, but they don’t copy the settings over from the old phone. Although I got my current phone at around half price (6,000 yen instead of 12,000 yen or so), the general hassle means that next time I’m upgrading as a dealer shop!
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Perhaps the headline is a little misleading, given that so much television in Japan can be found on the internet, and places like Nico-Nico Douga can make it interactive (but lets ignore the copyright issues), so perhaps the results of this survey from JR Tokai Express Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into television and internet are not as cut and dried as they seem.

Demographics

Over the 16th and 17th of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 61.5% of the sample were female (a surprisingly, if not suspiciously, high figure for JR Tokai) 17.9% were in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, and 5.5% in their sixties.

When a similar survey was conducted two years ago (which I am sure I translated, but I cannot find it!), television won in the fun stakes, but despite the wider availability of digital television with more interactivity and One Seg becoming a standard feature on most mobiles, and despite digital video recorders allowing users to watch television when they want to, broadcasting has lost out to computers. I’d love to know what exactly people found fun or not fun about both media and what has become more or less fun in the last two years; perhaps that information is available in the full survey.
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I’m back from holidays, so normal service will be resumed from today. To kick things off, here’s one from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and published by japan.internet.com looking into P2P (peer to peer) file-sharing software.

Demographics

On the 29th of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 73.6% of the sample were male, 8.8% in their twenties, 36.4% in their thirties, 41.2% in their forties, and 13.6% in their fifties. The Japanese text said in one place it was only those in private industry interviewed, but in another that it was both public and private; and in one place people from their twenties to sixties, but the percentage breakdown did not mention anything about people in their sixties…

In Q2, one category that is omitted is legitimate software, either shareware or Linux and other GPLed contents.

My fingers are still jet-lagged, so I cannot type too much extra comment tonight…
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I’m not really much of a fan of voice calls in any shape or form, and I do find it difficult to hear properly on a mobile phone, but it seems I am very much in the minority in Japan judging by the results of this survey by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into voice calls.

Demographics

On the 9th of July 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 77.0% of the sample were male, 8.2% in their twenties, 34.7% in their thirties, 44.1% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

My use of my home phone is limited to once every two weeks when I have a midnight teleconference, and my mobile phone to perhaps once a month when I need to contact my wife more directly than with email.
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I haven’t done such a straightforward topic for quite a while, so it’s nice to get back to basics with this short and to the point survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into blogs.

Demographics

On the first of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 3.3% in their teens, 13.9% in their twenties, 27.0% in their thirties, 30.0% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, 8.8% in their sixties, and 4.8% aged seventy or older.

There’s a couple of new-to-me sites in the list of hosts in Q2SQ. Lolipop Blog sounds downright suspicious but it seems quite innocent, a paid-for hosted blogging service. My Profile seems to be a mobile phone-targeted blogging service that will make your eyes bleed and your brain melt, and Laff Blog is from Yoshimoto Kogyo, the home of many of Japan’s comedians.

I’m not sure if writing diaries in mixi or other Social Networking Services was counted as blogging in Q2.
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I rarely use online sentence translators for Japanese as they are usually pretty much useless, although of course I couldn’t live without Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC for single word lookups. This recent survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into translation sites discovers the Japanese don’t rate them much too.

Demographics

On the 29th of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor panel employed in private industry successfully completed an internet-based closed questionnaire. 71.5% of the sample were male, 8.2% in their twenties, 42.7% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

Contrary to the occassional comment I get, I don’t use the output from online, or even offline, translation engines as a basis for my articles. Blame any bad grammar on not a machine or other forms of cheating, but on me alone!

I must say I enjoyed translating this one, so I hope you find the contents useful!
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I read the results of an interesting survey into how many Japanese had downloaded the new Firefox 3 release. The executive summary is that 5.5% of a sample of Japanese internet users from all walks of life had downloaded on release day, the 18th of June, then another 5.8% have downloaded since. However, 70.3% were unaware of the release, but after being informed of it through this survey, just another 6.9% wanted to download it, but 62.9% didn’t know, suggesting that there is qite a significantly proportion of Japanese internet users who are ignorant of Firefox’s existence.

Demographics

On the 3rd of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.5% of the sample were female, 14.5% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.8% in their sixties.

The full details of the survey may be found at the japan.internet.com’s report here.
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I’ve once or twice seen dodgy street stalls in Den-Den Town (Osaka’s Akihabara) selling copies of popular business software titles, so to see how the Japanese might purchase such goods of dubious provenance this survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com on piracy reveals some answers.

Demographics

On the 22nd of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Research monitor group employed in private industry successfully completed a private intret-based questionnaire. 77.6% of the sample were male, 9.1% were in their twenties, 40.6% in their thirties, 41.2% in their forties, and 9.1% in their fifties.

There’s actually a couple of problems with this survey – first Q1 asks if one has ever bought pirate media; how many were reporting purchases before they had broadband? I know when I had an Atari ST and a 1200/75 modem, I was regular visitor to The Barras. Second, by choosing a sample of people with internet access, they often have the ability to download stuff for free (or even paying, as the survey focussed on physical product) rather than paying for a tangible fake. And of course, there’s a certain percentage who would not admit their use of such contents.

Oh, and in Q1SQ1, pirate vinyl? Never heard of such a thing, although I wonder if that includes laser disk?
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Perhaps I should temporarily rename the blog to “携帯 What Japan Thinks of the iPhone” since I’m joining in on the hype at every opportunity! This time it is JR Tokai Express Research Inc, as reported by japan.internet.com, carring out a survey into the iPhone.

Demographics

On the 13th of June 2008 330 mobile phone-using members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in private industry completed a members-only internet-based questionnaire. 71.2% of the sample were male, 11.8% in their twenties, 44.5% in their thirties, 32.4% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

In Q2, it is curious that 10 people selected SMS as a feature they wanted to use. The users of SMS are few indeed, I think (I can’t remember the last time mentioned it on this blog), as a full email service (including HTML these days) is standard on phones, and there’s no such thing as free SMS in most plans. Perhaps it’s just that a few people are curious to see what exactly the fuss is about?

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