世論 What Japan Thinks

Recently iBridge Research Plus conducted a survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, into search engines.

Demographics

On the 5th of February 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were female, 18.7% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, 26.3% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 9.0% in their sixties.

I’d never heard of 百度, Hyakudo before, but a Google (what else!) search informed me that it’s actually read Baidu, the Japanese version of China’s top search engine.
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Last month I had a look at buying habits on Yahoo! Auction, so as a complement today I look at selling on Yahoo! Auction, in a survey from Media Interactive (iResearch) reported on japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 7th of January 2010 1,000 people who had sold items on Yahoo! Auction completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample were male, 0.5% in their teens, 13.6% in their twenties, 39.3% in their thirties, 31.6% in their forties, 12.0% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

It does seem that sellers are quite busy, with over two in five selling at least once a month. I’d love to find out more about what they are selling and if they are doing it as a real business or just selling off books they’ve read and clothes they’ve got bored with. Have any of my readers had any experiences of Japan online auctions?
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In Japan, Yahoo! Auction rules the roost, and this recent survey from Media Interactive (iResearch) into Yahoo! Auction showed that they also had the payment side of the auction well-covered too.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of December 2009 1,400 people who had won auctions on Yahoo! completed a private internet-based questionnaire, although how exactly they found the 1,400 winners was not described. 52.1% of the sample were male, 0.6% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 35.6% in their thirties, 31.2% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 4.1% in their sixties.

Yahoo! Simple Checkout is not like the standard for Ebay auctions, PayPal, in that it is not a bank-like entity but instead a trusted go-between so that there is no direct exchange of banking details. Yahoo! Simple Checkout can also be used when shopping through Yahoo! services, so there is no need to give your credit card details to the shops, just your Yahoo! Simple Checkout details.
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As the author of the Wikipedia nofollow WordPress plugin, I’m always on the lookout for stories about how Google and Wikipedia are getting on with each other. Recently I spotted this story on The Register about Encyclopedia Britannica complaining that Google ranks Wikipedia too highly. Naturally EB would complain about such a thing, but what particularly caught my eye was mention of an experiment Nick Carr, a member of the Brittanica’s board of editorial advisors, performed, looking up ten diverse topics in Google. Then, all 10 appeared on the first page of Google with two number ones. The current situation is all are now top of the pile, so I wondered what happens if I try the equivalent phrases in Japanese. I translated the terms by accessing the English Wikipedia then switching to Japanese, and using the article title. Also, since Google and Yahoo! battle it out for dominance in Japan, I used both engines, with the following results:

There are five non-first places in Yahoo!,something one can take as a good or a bad sign. For agriculture, ahead of Wikipedia in 4th place was Yahoo!’s own encyclopedia, an electronic version of a popular paper dictionary. The internet only making 17th place in Japanese is another curious outcome.

Yahoo! JAPAN recently annouced the results of a number of their “Best of 2008″, and one of the categories was what rare products people just couldn’t resist click through to. Voting was (as far as I understand) open to all registered users of Yahoo! JAPAN. The items were collected from all the Hot Items selected by Yahoo! Shopping between January and October of this year.

If you do like the look of Marimokkori, you can in fact buy him here.
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Yahoo! JAPAN recently annouced the results of a number of their “Best of 2008″, and one of the categories was the most clicked-through headline from Yahoo! News. The data was collected from all headlines displayed through Yahoo! NEWS between the 1st of November 2007 and 31st of October 2008.

You’ll notice that all of them are basically domestic stories, and most of the topics are either (or both) entertainment or death-related. You will note that nothing about politics, such as the minor matter of a change in prime ministers appears in the list, but in Japan’s defense I wonder if because these topics might have multiple reports, the clicks per story get diluted.

Click-through each link to find some English reporting on the story.
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Previous surveys have shown that Yahoo! is the top search engine (just) and the top start page, but what else do people use there? This survey reported on japan.internet.com and conducted by another new-to-me research company, Point On, and looked at the topic of Yahoo! JAPAN service awareness.

Demographics

On the 16th of October 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a web-based (mobile or PC?) survey.The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

The only service I use on either English or Japanese Yahoo! is their Japanese train route finding service. I have once or twice in the past used their greeting cards, but I found that service dissatisfying.

Note that I’ve linked through to all the services mentioned, in Japanese of course.
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Not too surprisingly, Yahoo! comes out on top as the most frequently used news site in Japan, but there are still many interesting results in this survey from MyVoice into news sites.

Demographics

Over the first four days of April 2008 14,913 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

I am glad to see that the top complaint is the lack of information in articles; most Japanese articles are just two or three paragraphs long and as a user of Google News one finds very similar reports in different papers. Google News also reveals another problem, namely that articles often expire really quickly; even after only a few hours a lot of the links on Google News lead to error pages.

For English news on Japan, I recommend the appropriately-named News on Japan as a useful aggregator of news, although in a few months there may very well be a new challenger in this market…
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Yahoo! is stupidly popular in Japan for just about everything, it seems, so this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into Yahoo! JAPAN reveals what people do at the portal.

Demographics

On the 28th of February 2008 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 82.7% of the sample were male, 10.9% in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

As suspected, last week’s survey that claimed only 18% used a portal’s train scheduler seems to be wrong, as here nearly half of all users say they use Yahoo! Transit to find their connections. I’m surprised at the large number using maps, however, as there are plenty of competing services that many businesses directly link to.
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Google rightfully beats Yahoo! hands down for English language search, but I never seem to have too much luck with Google and Japanese. I stay away from Yahoo! Japan as I find the design extremely ugly, but this doesn’t seem to be a factor with the natives according to a survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into information gathering through search portal sites.

Demographics

Between the 31st of January and the 3rd of February 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either public or private industry completed an internet-based questionnaire. 80.9% were male, 10.0% in their twenties, 40.0% in their thirties, 37.3% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

One thing I’m not sure if Yahoo! Japan does, but it is something that Google definitely doesn’t, is to search alternative verb forms, so that if you put in the infinitive it also searches past tense, progressive, passive, and so one. That would be nice, but top of my wish list would be alternative kanji and kana alternatives for a word; for example, skin clinic could appear as 皮膚科, 皮フ科, ひふ科 or even ヒフ科, so it would be nice if I typed in just one form and the search engine matched all the variants.
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