世論 What Japan Thinks

With the last posting day before New Year getting ever closer, this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into New Year postcards is a reminder to us all to get ours finished.

Demographics

Between the 29th of November and the 1st of December 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

I haven’t actually got round to even ordering my New Year postcards yet, and as I’ve been at our work Christmas end of year party tonight I’m in no fit state, so that’s another day closer to the deadline… Note, I’ve prepared this post ahead of time, so any mistakes are just the usual me, not the beer’s fault!
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This short report from japan.internet.com on a survey from goo Research on SNS (Social Network Service) privacy produced some interesting results that seem to run counter to the popular image of Japanese SNS users.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 19th of May 2011 1,082 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.8% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 15.3% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Note that in this survey, Twitter counts as an SNS, although I’ve never really understood why. Also note that the public viewing described below might be limited to only friends.
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The results from this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into online services may not be too reliable for SNS as number two and number three in the list, GREE and Mobage Town, are both mobile phone-based social gaming sites and I feel that the demographic they appeal to differs significantly from the more PC-oriented goo monitor group. I have no data to back up this, so take it with an appropriately-sized pinch of salt.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of January 2010 1,102 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 20.9% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties and 12.6% aged sixty or older.

I’m on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even have uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube.
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Just in time for the New Year nengajo postcard season, goo Research performed a survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, into that subject, with the report focusing on a service from mixi, Japan’s largest SNS, that allows people to send physical postcards to virtual friends, while maintaining the pseudo-anonymity of people’s online handles.

Demographics

Over the 7th and 8th of December 2010 1,098 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Since Facebook doesn’t offer such a service for Christmas cards (as far as I know), I can conclude that either such a degree of privacy is of no great concern to the average Facebook user or that the average user has no urge to send cards to their Facebook friends. Perhaps it might be more of the second, as surveys have found that Japanese have a significantly lower number of social network friends, indicating that they are more discerning about who they befriend.

Q3 is a quite surprising result from my point of view; note that the question refers to disclosing your address to mixi only, not to your contacts on the SNS, yet 70% don’t feel too happy about doing so.
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With mobile phone-based SNSes (well, they are more like Social Gaming Services) currently flooding television screens with advertisements, it’s easy to forget about the granddaddy of them all, mixi. goo Research haven’t as this was the subject of a survey they conducted that was reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of October 2010 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I kept meaning to sign up for mixi, and even got an invite from someone, but even now with it going invite-free this March I’ve never felt the urge to sign up, as it would just be something else to ignore along with What Japan Thinks on Facebook.
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A curious set of results were produced by this recent survey by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into microblogging. Although (or should that be ‘because’) the report did not define what a microblog was, under 8% reported having used or read one, yet just over 20% reported having been Twitter users, yet Twitter was the very first microblog.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 17th of September 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

However, there are other microblogs that are more like real blogs but with a text limit and without the social features of Twitter, but I cannot name any offhand! I’m sure there’s a WordPress plugin, though, to turn your blog into a Twitter for one. A quick Google finds these two for starters.

Regarding Q2SQ, I’ve updated my status line on Facebook exactly once.
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I’ve never heard the term music SNS before, although now that I read what it is I understand what they are referring to. The survey on this subject was from iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 14th of June 2010 300 members of the iBridge research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 10.3% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, 34.7% in their forties, 15.0% in their fifties, and 5.7% in their sixties.

I like music, but I’ve just fallen out of the habit of listening to it, so music SNSs are even less appealing than straightforward SNSs! The last time I listened to music off my own bat was this rather entertaining number:

Research results

First of all, seven people disliked music to some degree, so they were eliminated and the remaining 293 asked the following.

Q1A: Do you like listening, singing, or performing music? (Sample size=293)

Listening only	57.0%
Singing only	3.8%
Performing only	1.7%
Both listening and singing	26.6%
Both listening and performing	2.7%
Both singing and performing	0.7%
Listening, singing and performing	7.5%

Another way of looking at the data is this:

Q1B: Do you like listening, singing, or performing music? (Sample size=300)

	Votes	Percentage
Listening	275	91.7%
Singing	113	37.7%
Performing	37	12.3%
None of them	7	2.3%

Q2A: Do you participate in a music SNS? (Sample size=293)

Yes (to SQ)	1.7%
No	51.5%
Don’t know what it is	46.8%

Adding in the music haters from above we get:

Q2B: Do you participate in a music SNS? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ)	1.7%
No	50.3%
Don’t know what it is	45.7%
Don’t like music	2.3%

Q2SQ: Which music SNSs do you participate in? (Sample size=5, multiple answer)

MySpace	4
Uta-uga	1
Uta-suki	1
last.fm	0
Natalie	0
Jamming Music Station	0
MenboScape	0
Gosnavi	0
syncl	0
yanpon.com	0
AngesParty	0
Other	1

The sample size above is too small to make percentages meaningful.

The granddaddy of Japanese SNS, mixi, seems to be losing ground in the mobile phone world, faced by the challenge from casual game-centric SNSs, according to the results of this survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile Social Networking Services (SNS).

Demographics

On the 9th of December 2009 800 mobile phone user completed a private mobile phone-based survey. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

The two challengers to mixi are currently involved in a battle over an incredibly tedious-looking fishing game that GREE make the centre-piece of many of the television spots, as can be seen below:

I haven’t seen anything on SNS for a while, so I was pleased to see japan.internet.com report on a survey conducted by Point On Research into mobile Social Networking Services.

Demographics

On the 8th of June 2009 exactly 800 people successfully completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties. Note that because this is a mobile phone-based sample, which judging by previous surveys means there will be an over-representation of heavy mobile users, so the absolute percentages of mobile SNS users should be viewed in that light; the original text does indeed describe the sample as being “heavy users”.

GREE especially is heavily-advertised on television, and it is the game aspect that they push, not the social aspect. However, the games they show (mostly a fishing one and some ugly virtual pet) are particularly off-putting to me and make me want to avoid the place! I’d normally add in a link to the adverts on YouTube, but for some reason I cannot find them!
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I haven’t looked at Social Networking Services (SNS) for a while, so I was pleased to find this one to report, published on japan.internet.com and conducted by another newcomer to me, Point On Research, on mobile SNS.

Demographics

On the 16th of November 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a survey. It does not say whether or not the survey was conducted via mobile phone or computer-based internet, as a mobile phone base would imply a higher percentage of people on all-you-can-eat data plans, so these sort of people tend to be more active online. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

Note that although most people use a cut-down browser on their mobile phones, all the major PC-sites have tailored their interfaces to fit these restrictions. Having said that, most of the top sites in Q1 are mobile-only free game-centred SNSes.
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