世論 What Japan Thinks

The results of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone costs and fees are not really that surprising, especially since a year or so ago companies were ordered to stop their free or one yen phone promotions and allow the consumer to see more clearly the true costs of a free phone.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of May 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 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.

To research this story, I popped into a docomo mobile phone shop on the way home. They must have been embarrassed about it, as they only had tiny 8 point type price tags, which showed that all the spring and summer models were between 50,000 and 70,000 yen for the standard spec of 8 megapixel camera, one-seg television, electronic cash and the like. Even three revisions ago’s 18 month old phones were sitting at just under 40,000 yen, so I don’t think I’ll be upgrading my two and a half year old phone just yet!

My basic plan price is reasonable, but the unlimited packet deal at about 4,400 yen per month (on top of 2,000 yen or so basic plan) is just not justified for my current phone.
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This is one of these surveys that might be interesting to see in its entirity, as the taster provided by japan.internet.com of a survey by Marsh Inc into web site viewing habits provided information that without context is difficult to interpret.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 8th of May 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.7% were 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.

My wife has about three million bookmarks which make the lethargic at the best of times Internet Explorer really crawl whenever she opens up a new window. I keep my bookmarks reasonably-well categorised into folders, but then again there’s only about a dozen or so sites I regularly visit via bookmarks.
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Manga kissa is an abbreviation of manga kissaten, or in English comic cafe, the term I will use from now on. They can be found all over Japan, but I have yet to enter one as I have an image of them being very smokey. However, nearly half of all Japanese have been in one, according to this recent survey by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com on the subject of comic cafes.

Demographics

Over the 27th and 28th of April 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the respondents were female, 0.3% 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. Don’t ask me why one teenager sneaked in to disrupt the even split!

Searching around I found an interesting concept in comic cafes, Manboo, which, as the name intentionally or unintentionally suggests, appears to be a female-oriented cafe with a suspiciously Yahoo!-like logo yet has Yahoo! search embedded on its home page. I’m confused…
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With KDDI running the au design project that is producing a number of interesting phones, this look by Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into cellphone design found that simple, if not just downright boring, was best.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of April 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% 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’m a bit surprised that they didn’t include a suitable category for the iPhone to fall under in Q1. The straight type implies more the standard candybar rather than the… how would you describe the iPhone’s form factor?

I’m a clamshell adult elegant black or two-tone sort of guy myself.
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The title of this post is me being rather creative (read “outright lying”) regarding the results of Q2, but regardless, this survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet scariness finds the average Japanese web user quite the tim’rous beastie.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% 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.

If you don’t know what goatse.cx is, think yourself lucky, and do NOT, I repeat NOT, just look it up to see what I am on about! You have been warned.

I personally don’t find the internet scary at all; irritating in places, but not scary.

For reference, in December of 2007 a similar survey was conducted.

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With the launch of UQ Communications’ WiMAX service in Japan on the 26th of February, Marsh Inc performed a survey, reportd on by japan.internet.com, into awareness of WiMAX.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

WiMAX is, of course, err, I don’t really know – something to do with next generation high-speed wireless is about the extent of my knowledge, so instead have a look at a story on Asiajin to see a bit more about what it is.

Q1 is a bit surprising with only 63.0% aware of WiFi. The complete question was not reported, so I wonder if there was something a bit strange about the phrasing.

Q1SQ2 seems a bit strange as the implication is that over 40% of the sample learnt about UQ WiMAX between the asking of Q1 and Q1SQ2, so for this question too there must have been some strange phrasing.
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I would recommend free security software to most people, but the tone of this recent survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into free security software seems very much to be taking a sceptical view of free.

Demographics

Between the 27th of February and the 2nd of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

My misgivings about paid-for security software is that they tend to get bloated as time goes on, providing far more features than the average person really needs in an attempt to justify their need for subscription fees. My personal free security recommendations are Avast anti-virus and Spybot Search and Destroy spyware removal, useful if you have a family member who downloads toolbars and desktop widgets of dubious origins.
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It’s now about a year since acTVila launched, a facility for using your television as a media centre, allowing download of movies (and other contents) on demand for both free and pay contents. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this subject of acTVila.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of February 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.l7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

I’m very surprised to see that a quarter of all digital television watchers have plugged their television into the internet. Although my HDD player is network ready, I’ve never had the urge to plug it in as I don’t really see what the point is. It would enable me to program it remotely from a mobile phone, but I’ve never been in the situation where I thought this might be useful.

On the other hand, I have got a bunch of ideas about what features might encourage more people to plug in which I plan to talk about at work next Monday, so I’d better not say anything here as my employer will no doubt want to bury them in the patent process.

Oh, and sorry for the delay in posting, but I’m in Athens on a business trip, and I couldn’t get my internet to work in the airport lounges along the way!
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As I’ve just recently had a request from work to complete some online training, this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into e-learning is quite timely for me.

Demographics

Over the 7th and 8th of January 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% 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 training I’ve been asked to complete is some stuff on copyright and intellectual property, all in Japanese of course, in some sort of Flash-based presentation that I’ve not tried yet. I once did a similar course with quite nice software that came with full text of all the script, so I could easily cut-and-paste words I didn’t understand into a dictionary. However, the course was ridiculously easy; it just seemed like a way to force you to sit through 10 or 15 hours of lectures, with the implication, of course, that you do it all on your own time, not at work.
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This short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at the subject of biometric identification.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of December 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% 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.

Just about all the non-special permanent resident foreigners in Japan will have had experience with biometrics as we all get out fingerprints and face scanned at immigration, but this survey is about biometric identification, and as I understand it the machines can only identify people on immigration blacklists in real-time, it perhaps does an offline (2-day turn-around) scan of ordinary criminal records, but there are no reference prints to verify the average law-abiding non-citizen against.

Many of the newer mobile phones have face-identification for unlocking the phone, but even though mine has I’ve never tried it out for fear of locking myself out of my mobile!
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