世論 What Japan Thinks

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Oh, and the older models haven’t had any noticable price reduction even though they’ve been superceded.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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Here’s an interesting look with Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into hands-free mobile phone equipment.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of October 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were 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.

Considering that Bluetooth is not standard on even high-end phones, and given that talking isn’t really that popular in Japan anyway, one rarely sees the earpiece kit on pedestrians (certainly not in the Osaka area, although it might be a bit more popular in Tokyo) so I suspect the devices are just as rare in cars.

The article also notes that the fine for using a mobile phone while driving is 5,000 yen for a bicycle, 6,000 yen for a car or motorbike, and 7,000 yen for a large vehicle. This goes up to 50,000 yen if you cause an accident, etc. The basic fine seems a bit low considering I got done for 15,000 yen for parking for under 10 minutes in a back-street just last month.
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A recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at people’s home computer environment. This is a topic I previously covered almost two years ago.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 14th of September 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 1.0% were in their teens, 19.0% 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.

Q2 is a bit vague in the wording, as especially for a portable machine, the room in which it is placed, which implies when not in use, and the room in which it is used may differ. I know when I take my work note PC home it sits in the study/spare room when I’m not using it, but I bring it through to the kitchen table when I want to use it. However my main desktop sits permanently at a computer desk in the study.

Which reminds me, I really should organise the area around my computer desk to be a proper homeworking setup…
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There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into recording television programs, although I’d like to have seen a larger sample size and a more detailed look at some of the data.

Demographics

Between the 27h and 30th of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 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.

The more detailed information I’d like (perhaps I’ll get it some time from goo Research’s regular digital TV survey?) is to see if people are currently buying either DVD or Blu-Ray recorders for their digital terrestrial decoders or for their recording capabilities, as it can be seen in Q1SQ2 that the recorders based around the dead HD DVD format are just as popular for time-shifting as Blu-Ray devices. With the analog switch-off less than two years away (24th July 2011), many of the almost one-in-three still using tape are going to find themselves in some trouble, I suspect.

I watch more real-time television – I use the weekends to catch up on stuff I’ve missed.
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Following on from yesterday’s look at using a mobile phone as a wristwatch, this time Marsh Inc looked at using a mobile as an alarm clock in a survey reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 30th of July and the 1st of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, with 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 use an alarm clock, I recently received one for my birthday, a cat-themed one that is insulated enough not to tick, but screams out in Japanese in the morning “GET UP! MEOWWWW! IT’S TIME! MEOWwwww! GET UP!” and rather than a lever to batter it into silence, I need to fiddle with a recessed switch, and as I turn it off it screams again “YOU’VE GOT UP, PERHAPS?” I should record it tomorrow and upload a movie…
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Here’s an interesting little survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into gourmet site usage.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of July 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 1.7% of the sample were 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 use the word “gourmet” above as the Japanese also use that loan word to describe eating out, although perhaps it does sound a bit too fancy in English.

I personally only rarely used Guru-navi (an abbreviation of an approximation of “gourmet navigation”), and only when I have a specific restaurant in mind and want to check for discount coupons! They have a small English sub-site, if you want to check that out – note none of the others linked below have an English version.
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Here’s an interesting little survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into computer maintenance, looking in particular at cleaning one’s PC and accessories.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of July 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 1.3% were 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.

I think the survey is looking at home computers, although there is no clear statement in the article to say that it is.

I must admit to only cleaning my PC once a year, although about once a month I do clean the fluff off the bottom of the mouse.
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It’s been a couple of years since the last time I had a look at a survey on QR Codes, so it was nice to see this one from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of June 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.3% were in their teens, 19.7% 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 most often read QR Codes from advertising leaflets, usually encoding an email address that allows me to sign up to a mailing list to get a discount coupon for a restaurant I’m visiting. A few months ago I used one to enter a competition, and won 2,500 yen’s worth of food vouchers.

Just last month I wanted to read the QR Codes of friends from Nokia’s laptop computers – they were some sort of inventory tag, but they didn’t want to let me just in case it contained confidential information, but I did think sticking a 10 centimetre square tag on a computer case was hardly the way to handle such information! They checked with their Nokia app, and it was just a boring vCard-type tag.
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There’s one very useful figure in this survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into typing, namely the use of romaji versus kana input – wait until after the demographics and I’ll explain it!

Demographics

Between the 5th and 7th of June 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 2.7% were 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.

Japanese keyboards usually come with two layouts; one way to explain is to take as an example the word Tokyo, in kanji 東京. In romaji, meaning using the Roman alphabet to spell, one types “toukyou” on a standard QWERTY layout and presses the space bar to convert to kanji. For kana input, the five individual kana syllables that make up the word need to be typed, namely とうきょう, with an extra shift key push to get the small よ. On the standard kana layout, the keys correspond to “s4g)4″, so one can see that if you often mix Japanese and English, romaji input saves you having to learn two layouts.

On the other hand nearly all Japanese mobile phones use kana-based input, and indeed a recent phone was advertising as a unique feature the ability to input in romaji and convert to kanji.
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