世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on the results of goo Research’s 9th regular survey into keitai (mobile phone) novels.

Demographics

Over the 27th and 28th of June 2011 1,121 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Keitai novels are usually serialised books that are written in mobile phone email slang, on the whole. A number of them have crossed over into print, but I don’t really know how popular they are these days. Ahh, I just feel bitter that goo Research stopped their regular look at RSS readers and replaced it with this topic!
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Keitai (mobile phone) novels are a type of work often written episodically with consumption on a mobile phone in mind, often in the style of email messages complete with slang, emoticons and emoji. This survey, goo Research’s 8th regular look at these keitai novels found that the percentage consuming them on smartphones had tripled since March of last year.

Demographics

On the 28th of March 2011 1,139 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 11.9% in their sixties.

The increase in readership on smartphones is curious; it would be interesting to see how many of the smartphone readers were ex-mobile phone readers who had upgraded, as I would guess it would be a significant percentage.
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This survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, was their regular look at keitai (mobile phone) novels, a genre of writing designed to be read on a mobile phone, and often written on them too. Common features include short sentences, paragraphs and chapters, and a casual writing style featuring emoticons and graphical emoji icons. This is the 7th time this approximately bi-monthly survey has been conducted; the sixth survey translation is here for reference.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 30th of November 2010 1,087 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

Unfortunately, the article just notes the halt in the rise of smartphone readers of keitai novels without any analysis. I don’t really have any insights either, so any conjecture would be a pure guess, so I’ll refrain from making one.
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This survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at keitai (mobile phone) novels, a genre of writing designed to be read on a mobile phone, and often written on them too. Common features include short sentences, paragraphs and chapters, and a casual writing style featuring emoticons and graphical emoji icons. This is the 6th time this approximately bi-monthly survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Over the 31st of August and 1st of September 2010 1,112 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 11.4% aged sixty or older.

In June, the fifth time this survey was conducted, 5.5% had read keitai novels on smartphones, and in April, the fourth time this survey was conducted and the first time the smartphone answer was highlighted, 3.8% had read keitai novels on smartphones, thus smartphone readership is slowly creeping up. However, there was no data supplied regarding smartphone ownership, but I would suspect that there would be quite a strong correlation.
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Recently, goo Research conducted their second regular keitai novel (mobile phone novel) survey, which was reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of October 2009 1,073 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 21.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Note that here a keitai novel (“keitai” is short for “keitai denwa”, “portable phone”) is a novel written especially for mobile phones, and often written itself on a mobile phone, rather than just the electronic version of a paper novel consumed on a mobile phone. Hopefully those answering the questions here were fully aware of that distinction!

It would be interesting to see what percentage of people had read the same book in both formats, and the number of books in each format.
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