世論 What Japan Thinks

Every time a survey like this one from Marsh Inc into domains comes up, I comment on how the statistics must surely be wrong, or at the very least the question is framed badly.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of February 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Considering that I would presume that a prerequisite to owning a top-level domain is knowing in detail what exactly it is, 61 people know the details about domains and 73 people claim to have had one, that’s about 20% who just didn’t really know what their domain was. Thus, I have to conclude that “having a domain” includes “having a blog on a sub-domain”, not merely the stricter definition of “having purchased a top-level domain”, especially considering that .jp domains are considerably more expensive than the others.

I own a few .coms and a .net, I had a .biz, and I have a .org and a cunning plan…
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Unfortunately what this survey by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile search omits is what search provider people are using, but still it is quite interesting to see what people are searching for.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of February 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 1.7% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve only had a fleeting experience with the default search engine built into docomo’s iMode, but it was pretty terrible. Now I directly use Google and its iMode front-end, although it’s barely once a month that I use it, and then it is always for “<restaurant name> coupon”, which usually gives me a hit in one of the top three entries.
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As a sort-of follow-up on a recent survey into internet performance, this time we look with Marsh Inc and japan.internet.com at computer dissatisfaction.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 17th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 2.3% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’m mostly satisfied with my setup at home - it’s no speed demon, but it wasn’t bought as one, although it could do with a little bit of extra memory as it gets a bit slow when memory fills up, and the mouse is rather wonky.

Interestingly, in this survey everyone had a home computer, although usually there’s always one or two who do their surveys from the office or an internet cafe - I presume they pre-screened the sample.
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted the results of a survey on QR Codes (these two-dimensional bar code things) but this one from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com is worth the wait.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 24th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

A number of PC internet-targetted services - Yahoo! Maps springs to mind, and I think I’ve seen them for hotel bookings - display a QR Code that contains a URL that summarises the data on display in a mobile-friendly format. They also offer an option to email the URL to a mobile, but perhaps people worry about submitting their mobile email address and ending up being a spam target.

My two “Other” places for reading a QR Code was from a friend’s corporate PC inventory tag and from my health insurance card, just to see what information was encoded in both places.
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Recently, Marsh Inc performed a survey into online map searching, the results of which were reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 1.3% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Thinking about it, I don’t usually do map search - for Japanese-language searches, just entering the address into Google usually turns up a direct link to a map site or an official page with an embedded map, and for English-language searches Google usually inlines a map in the main results. The last time I directly searched was when I was going on holiday to Europe and wanted to get driving directions from Google Maps.
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And using the internet is also popular in net cafes, according to these astonishing results into manga cafes from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 4th of December 2009 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 1.3% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Interesting, although the Japanese for net cafe is basically the English term and manga cafe is the equally short manga kissa, they are often further abbreviated to necafe and… well, I’m not actually sure how to pronounce the abbreviation, but it’s either man-kiss, man-ki or man-kitsu, and I secretly hope it’s the first of the three.

Oh, and as to the difference between the two, I suspect it is more branding than any specific difference in facilities.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever used an internet cafe or a manga kissa? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ1)	44.3%
No	53.7%
Don’t know what an internet cafe or manga kissa is	2.0%

The usage percentage is up two percentage points from a similar survey in May.

Q1SQ1: What sorts of things do you mainly do in internet cafes, manga kissas? (Sample size=133)

	Votes	Percentage
Read manga	103	77.4%
Use internet, computer (to SQ2)	89	66.9%
Eat, drink	38	28.6%
Watch DVD, video	21	15.8%
Sleep	18	13.5%
Read other books	17	12.8%
Play console games	8	6.0%
Take a shower	5	3.8%
Other	3	2.3%

Q1SQ2: What sorts of things do you do on computers in internet cafes, manga kissas? (Sample size=89)

	Votes	Percentage
View web sites	85	95.5%
Send, receive email	39	43.8%
Watch movies	20	22.5%
Read, write to bulletin boards	18	20.2%
Social Network Services	16	18.0%
Update my blog, web site	13	14.6%
Play online game	12	13.5%
Print out stuff	12	13.5%
Work	10	11.2%
Chat	5	5.6%
Other	0	0.0%

With most mobile phones these days coming in at over 50,000 yen - interestingly, for docomo at least, most of their smartphone range is well under half the price of the feature phones - it surely must be scaring a lot of people off upgrading. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone price and usage fees revealed such a trend.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Looking at docomo’s range (I am a docomo user), it seems to be anything that supports docomo’s walled garden iMode service gets a price tag of around 60,000 yen, but the smartphones which don’t are between 15,000 and 30,000 yen. The only exception seems to be LG devices; they have recently been trying to break into the Japanese market and are embracing the Japanese standards of decomail and emoji feature phones, but in order to get over the psychological hurdle of not being Japanese, they are using price as a weapon.

In addition, I work for a mobile phone manufacturer, and even though the company sells their own products in the on-site shops, even with staff discounts we are still being asked to pay 45,000 yen for even the year-old phones, and for that womderful discount are expected to migrate our address books from one device to another all by ourselves.
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Following on from docomo’s autumn and winter line-up, today we look at SoftBank’s new models, the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.7% in their teens, 19.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Looking at this and the previous docomo survey (I’ll skip the au one if that turns up!) you might be left thinking that that’s an awful lot of new phones! Well, you wouldn’t be the only one, as today another survey was published (I’ll be translating it either tomorrow or Monday) asking that very question.

Looking at the models available, I’m most interested in the one pictured here, the Sharp 942SH KT…
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Docomo have recently announced their new line up for autumn and winter. There are almost no new phones; most of them are just refreshes of existing products with maybe a higher-end camera here and a few extra lighting effects there. One new one is the SC-01B, which seems to be just a Japanese-targetted tweak of Samsung’s Omnia Pro B7330 with a touch panel, but the B code seems to be trying to suggest to the customer that it’s an upgraded BlackBerry Bold. Anyway, these NTT docomo new models were the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

The Photopanel 02 is a new one on me, but as the name suggests it is a digital photo frame. There was also a 01, but I’ve never seen that anywhere!

Looking at the old and new phones last weekend I feel docomo’s range is getting too confused. Looking at Panasonic, for instance (most of the Japanese manufacturers suffer from this), they have two basic clamshell designs (there’s also a third slider phone), but mix and match features, so you can have a touch-pad keyboard and two-way opening, but a low-end camera. Go for a higher mega-pixel count and you lose two-way opening and the inward camera, but get more emoji and a cartoon character theme. They all have basically the same price so it’s really an exercise in frustration trying to decide which to compromise on.

Oh, and the older models haven’t had any noticable price reduction even though they’ve been superceded.
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The power of Google, or more probably Yahoo! in the case of Japan, was revealed by this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into blog services.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of October 2009 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I don’t think I’ve added a new blog to my regular reading list for a while, but the last Japan-related one I added was either through JapanSoc or Japan Probe’s headline list.

Another blog I’ve recently started reading regularly was found through a Google news RSS feed for one of my other blogs.

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