世論 What Japan Thinks

The 27th regular survey of mobile phone users’ use of computers, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, focused on the theme of email newsletters, and in particular mobile phone email newsletters.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of May 2011 1,052 mobile phone using members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a mobile phone-based questionnaire. 55.5% of the sample were female, 3.3% in their teens, 22.8% in their twenties, 37.3% in their thirties, 26.9% in their forties, and 9.7% aged 50 or older.

Decomail is a registered trademark of docomo, an abbreviation of “decorated email”. “HTML email” is probably the more familiar English term for it, email with embedded graphics.

I am subscribed to four low-volume (once a week or so) mailing lists on my mobile phone, one from DCMX (docomo’s credit card) which is quite decomail heavy, one from Mr Donuts that has just emoji, and two others that are text only, although one of the text ones sets the font colour to grey for some strange reason.
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This survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com was the 24th regular monthly survey into mobile phone users’ computer use.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 13th of February 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample were male, 3.3% in their teens, 22.7% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 8.6% aged fifty or older. Note that all monitor members have to be computer users to sign up, so by implication all 1,000 users should also have computers.

I’m translating this mail right now thanks to a mobile phone email from Mister Donut, which contained a 20% off coupon for a very nice crunchy chocolate Pon De Ring and enough coffee to get me to the end of this translation.

I am on about two other mobile phone mailing lists – one for my mobile phone shop (once a month and I delete it immediately) and one from my mobile phone provider’s credit card company, which I don’t think I’m allowed to unsubscribe from!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s 21st regular survey into mobile phone users’ use of computers.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of October 2010 1,042 members of the goo Research online monitor group who had also subscribed as mobile phone users completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 55.0% of the sample were female, 2.9% in their teens, 25.8% in their twenties, 36.9% in their thirties, 26.2% in their forties, and 8.3% aged fifty or older.

There’s actually not much exciting about these results, I think, but here you go anyway.

Note that the goo Research monitor group initially signs up everyone as a computer-based user, then they can elect to further complete mobile phone surveys too, thus there would be a tendency for the sample to consist of computer-centric people, so the results as difficult to extrapolate
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For a number of months goo Research has been conducting a regular survey into mobile phone users’ use of computers, but the reports on japan.internet.com have been pretty uninteresting. However this time, the 18th time, the focus of the report was on email newsletters, or “mail magazines” as they are called in Japanese.

Demographics

Over the 12th and 13th of July 2010 1,087 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire. 55.9% of the sample were female, 2.3% in their teens, 22.8% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, and 9.0% aged fifty or older.

The only email newsletter I get on my mobile phone is from Mr Donut, as it sometimes offers coupons for discounts on doughnuts and coffee. Just about all my PC newsletters fall into the Other category, being related to various blogging sites and services.
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Since most Japanese mobile phones these days support HTML-styled email with embedded graphics and font selection, it is not surprising that as with computer email, mobile phone newsletter publishers are also now delivering their wares in a more flashy form. To find out the extent of this, japan.internet.com reported on the relevant part of goo Research’s 12th regular mobile phone users’ computer use survey.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 10th of December 2009 1,060 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 27.3% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 18.1% in their forties, and 6.3% aged fifty or older.

Decomail (sometimes shortened to just decome) is short for decoration mail, which means at its simplest HTML-based email, but usually implies embedded graphics.

I once got a picture-laden newsletter from the masters of spam agressive marketing, Rakuten, but I soon cancelled as I realised I was paying about 20 yen in packet charges just to look at the email! I still get about three newsletters to my mobile, but they are all just plain text.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets email newsletters from various places that I just can’t unsubscribe from, and in Japan there seems to be no law or industry best practice to have a simple unsubscribe link even from reputable businesses, so this recent survey from iShare into unwanted email newsletters revealed how the average person copes with this situation.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 28th of September 2009 513 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.8% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, and 36.3% in their forties.

My wife gets a shed-load of spam every day, especially from Rakuten (Japan’s largest online mall), who will sell on your address to their shops at the drop of a hat, so even if you unclick all the mail delivery boxes, you come back a day or two later and find that new boxes have appeared. I suspect in the small print when you buy something from one of their shops is some text saying that you agree to get email from other businesses from the same genre. She has mostly given up on unsubscribing, so she now has hundreds of addresses blocked in her mail client!
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First, an apology for What Japan Thinks being down again earlier today. I’ve got something strange going on at my host.

Now, on to the survey; MyVoice took a look at email newsletter usage.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 14,939 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

I am probably signed up to about ten or so newsletters, but most of them I don’t look at. About the only one I really do pay attention to is from Flying Blue (KLM and Air France mileage card) as they quite often have decent promotional offers. My wife also forwards the Mister Donuts mail to me which usually has nice discount coupons.
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Recently goo Research conducted a survey into mobile phone users use of computers, with this report from japan.internet.com concentrating on email newsletters, or “Mail Magazines” as they are known as in Japanese English. This was the sixth time they’ve conducted this regular monthly survey, but the first time I’ve translated any from the series.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 13th of May 2009 1,066 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 55.9% of the sample were female, 2.7% were in their teens, 26.7% in their twenties, 40.4% in their thirties, 24.2% in their forties, and 5.9% aged fifty or older.

Looking at the results, and trying to remember when I applied to be a goo Monitor, I believe that you must first apply to be a computer-based monitor, then add your mobile phone email account, so everyone in the survey should have access to a computer.

I get just the one newsletter on my mobile phone, which I really should cancel (in fact, I’ve just cancelled right now), but get too many on my PC, including one from DHC (a cosmetics company) thanks to my wife signing up with my address, who send me a mail every day, but although they include an unsubscribe link, you have to log into your account to confirm it, but my wife’s forgotton the password.
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Email newsletter, or as they are known in Japanese English mail magazines (which is usually then abbreviated to meru-maga) are a popular way for companies to communicate with their customers and potential customers. To find out how popular, japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey conducted by goo Research into email newsletters.

Demographics

Over the 20th and 21st of January 2008 (don’t ask me why japan.internet.com took three months to report!) 1,100 members of the goo Research online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 14.4% in their teens, 20.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

I run a wee newsletter myself, just a weekly summary of my surveys, other interesting news, stuff about blogging, and rounded off with something interesting or strange that happened to me in the past week. If you’d like to join or check the archives, visit the 世論 What Japan Thinks Google Groups Newsletter or sign up with this form:

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Looking around at a number of other sites, I see that they often offer a newsletter service. Although they (and this blog too, of course) offer RSS-based subscriptions, a newsletter seems like a good way to talk more directly to my readers. What I propose to offer is first a headline service for last week’s posts, of course, but in addition I’ll also post links to other news that has caught my eye, not just Japan public opinion-related news, but also other Japan news and even the occassional international opinion poll or other news items. I will also mention site-related news and general blog-related information that may be of interest to others, and perhaps even provide sneak previews of forthcoming cunning plans.

The mailing list will be read-only and fully moderated by myself, so it should be spam-free. I’ll keep the frequency at once a week. Please feel free to view or sign up by visiting http://groups.google.com/group/what-japan-thinks-newsletter. It’s hosted at Google, so to get the most out of it you need an account with them, but the archives are in public view and available for anyone to read. Note that I can view the email addresses of the subscribers, but no regular members can, but I promise not to sell or otherwise abuse the address list.

Alternatively, just enter your email address here to subscribe:

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