世論 What Japan Thinks

I love search engines, not least because they are responsible for generating about 75% of my AdSense income! I get barely any traffic from Japanese-language searches, however. To find out a bit more about what the Japanese do with them, as reported by japan.internet.com, JR Tokai Express recently conducted a survey into the rather grandly titled subject of information gathering power of search portal sites.

Demographics

On the 7th of September 2007 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were employed in the public or private sector (why limit to these, I don’t know. Perhaps there was additional questions on work-based usage patterns?) answered an internet-based questionnaire. 82.3% of the sample was male, 12.3% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 38.9% in their forties, 8.4% in their fifties, and 0.3%, or just one person, was in their sixties.

I’d love to know where people most often get their answers from. If the Japanese keyword side of the search engines are as polluted with Wikipedia results as the English side, then perhaps a lot of people are taking the Wikipedia results at face value. There was an interesting case this week about how a rogue edit, making the recently-deceased Ronny Halzehurst a co-author of a pop hit, was copied by lazy journalists, and now these newspaper’s error is used to back up the veracity of Wikipedia’s disinformation.
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According to a recent survey on robots conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com, domestic robots are broadly welcomed, but there is strong reluctance towards letting robots help out with the softer skills.

Demographics

One the 4th of September 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor panel employed in the public and private sectors answered a private internet-based questionnaire. 77.3% of the sample was male, 12.7% in their twenties, 38.7% in their thirties, 33.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 0.9% in their sixties.

A Roomba might be nice around our living room to occassionally scoot around and pick up fluff and crumbs from under the sofa and the table, although I don’t really see it as a substitute for my weekly hoovering, just something that makes my job a bit easier on Sunday mornings. I don’t really see how a clothes washing robot could be effectively made; tasks like hanging out the washing, for instance, are rather intricate, and going around the house picking up dirty clothes is a nice image but impractical given the current state of the art in robotics.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into the subject of losing portable electronic devices.

Demographics

On the 23rd of August 2007 331 members of JR Tokai Express Research Inc’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% were male, 17.5% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 32.6% in their forties, 14.5% in their fifties, and 3.6% in their sixties.

Last year I translated a similar survey on forgetting electronic items which might be useful as a cross reference. I’ve not lost anything more since the last questionnaire, although I nearly did leave my notebook computer in a restaurant only to get the staff return it to me as I was paying the bill.
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Here’s a topic I haven’t seen a survey on for a while – perhaps it is no longer the next big thing? To find out if that is the case or not, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on the topic of podcasting.

Demographics

On the 31st of August 2007 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor pool employed in either public service or private enterprises completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.3% of the group was male, 15.5% in their twenties, 37.3% in their thirties, 35.8% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

The best thing about these podcast surveys is that it gives me an excuse to plug my favourite podcast, indeed the only podcast I listen to, Transpacific Radio, for the most detailed English news you can get on the Japanese worlds of politics, business, and occasionally even Duran Duran.

As I just listen to the one podcast, I don’t use any aggregator, I just directly download from TPR’s RSS feed for playback in Windows Media Player – I dislike using iPods.
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If one hangs out at places like slashdot for too long one gets the impression that almost all the software engineers usually use free office suites such as OpenOffice.org, and only resort to Microsoft Word and friends under threats of physical violence from pointy-haired bosses. However, that is the USA; what about Japan and the average engineer? To find out, japan.internet.com reported on a survey recently conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into office suite software.

Demographics

On the 18th of August 2007 330 IT engineers involved in software development, system development and system management completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 96.4% of the sample was male, 1.2% in their twenties, 26.7% in their thirties, 59.1% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties and 0.3% in their sixties. This sample seems to have a definite case of “metabo” (“metabolic syndrome”, or more simply a lot of fat around the middle!); JR Tokai Express does have a middle management bias, but only 1.2% in their twenties seems extremely low.

Back in May I translated another similar survey on office suite usage in the public and private sectors, where we saw 97.1% used Microsoft Office, a very similar figure to the one reported below when looking at just the IT engineering segment, a perhaps counter-intuitive result.
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Recently, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into awareness of Google services.

Demographics

On the 7th of August 2007 335 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel who were mployed in public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The male-female ratio was not reported, but 16.1% were in their twenties, 37.9% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 8.4% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

I noted the omission of my favourite Google web application, Google Reader, their online feed reader. Indeed, it’s been quite I while since I last saw an RSS usage survey.

Also, it’s interesting they mention AdWords, the advertisers’ side of Google’s advertising empire, not the publishers’ side, AdSense, which I would have thought would have been more familiar.

CAVEAT: Thanks to Gen Kanai for highlighting the big flaw in this poll, namely that the figures suggest half of all web users always use Google. The text given in Japanese used “always” for the first answer in Q1, but perhaps “frequently” would be a closer reflection on reality. Previous surveys, and a forthcoming one too, suggests people favour Yahoo! by a considerable margin, so the presented 49.0% always using Google must be incorrect.
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When this report popped up on japan.internet.com’s web site, I first thought they’d made a mistake and reprinted a survey from last week, but after a double-check I realised that it was actually a rather clever and appropriate follow-on survey to that recent look at how working women viewed their lot in the office, this time JR Tokai Express Research Inc looking at how males perceived male-female disparity in the office.

Demographics

On the 17th of August 2007 331 men from the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who worked in private industry took part in a private internet-based questionnaire. 100.0% were male, of course, 9.1% were in their twenties, 38.4% in their thirties, 37.8% in their forties, and 14.8% in their fifties.

One thing you might note is that this time those in their thirties and forties form the biggest group, whereas for women more were in their twenties and thirties. This reflects to some extent the reality in Japanese working life that women tend to abandon their careers (I looked before at some of the issues behind this phenomenon)

As noted before, for those studying Japanese, the word used the the questions below was 格差, kakusa, which translates to disparity rather than perhaps 差別, sabetsu, discrimination. I’m not sure how the different wordings might have affected the responses; for me “disparity” describes the state of the workplace, whereas “discrimination” suggests active policies favouring men.
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This is one of these surveys reports where there are eyebrow-raising statistics reported and I’d love to get my hands on the fuller results. At my place of work, for instance, I’ve worked with two women who were extremely capable but were very slow to get promoted to the management layer, with one of them, I suspect, held back by being a working mother and working mostly to regulation hours, despite the fact that she was extremely organised and could get everything done as required without needing to stay to 10pm every night in pointless meetings.

So, japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into working women’s attitudes.

Demographics

On the 27th of July 2007 330 women from the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who worked in private industry took part in a private internet-based questionnaire. 100.0% were female, of course, 24.2% were in their twenties, 48.2% in their thirties, 24.2% in their forties, and 3.3% in their fifties.

For those studying Japanese, note that the word used the the questions below was 格差, kakusa, which translates to disparity rather than perhaps 差別, sabetsu, discrimination. I’m not sure how the different wordings might have affected the responses; for me “disparity” describes the state of the workplace, whereas “discrimination” suggests active policies favouring men, so perhaps it is easier for women to describe their office as having disparity?
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After looking up a handy internet reference, it seems that the original Japanese version of this article misinterpreted what Engel’s Law really is, but don’t let that spoil the report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into family budgets and communication costs.

Demographics

On the 28th of July 2007 331 married women aged between 30 and 59 who were members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. 59.8% of the sample were in their thirties, 28.4% in their forties, and 11.8% in their fifties.

There’s an interesting social point here that traditionally it is the woman who looks after the family budget, with the husband handing over his pay packet and getting a small sum of pocket money back to last him through the month, thus they chose married women as the best judges, presumably, of the family finances.

For me, communications comes to just under 20,000 yen, helped by having an extremely cheap fibre connection – under 3,000 yen, and a bundled phone deal with our cable company that works out rather cheap. Don’t ask me how much that is in relation to monthly outgoings, however!

Engel’s law states that the ratio of food costs to total budget tends to decrease as salary increases, but this survey does not report results from Q1SQ2 in relation to salaries, so one can conclude that either the more detailed survey results back this up, or they are, as suggested above, misusing the term.
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Despite some mediocre reviews Apple’s new iPhone has been apparently flying off the shelves in the USA, and judging by this survey, many in Japan are hoping for an early release in this country too. This was revealed in a survey recently reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on the topic of Apple’s iPhone

Demographics

On the 6th of July 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor panel employed in private industry or local or national government successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 76.1% were male, 11.5% in their twenties, 44.4% in their thirties, 32.3% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

I think personally that the iPhone would not do well in its current state in Japan. First and foremost, the lack of 3G speed would be a major issue for many mobile web users. Second, given that most people are used to the designed-to-fit experience of mobile-targeted sites, a full browser is perhaps not all that necessary. Third, Japanese on the whole do not use nor perhaps want SmartPhones; there is no significant Palm or Blackberry-using demographic that need the business-like features. Fourth, and perhaps the biggest deal-breaker, there is no hook to hang your dangly thingies off!
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