(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Most Japanese Internet Users Only Glance at Web Pages
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January 5, 1999 (TOKYO) -- More than 60 percent of Web pages accessed
by Japanese Internet users are viewed for less than 20 seconds, according
to early results of a survey on the browsing habits of Internet users.
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The survey, still running, is being conducted by Nikkei Market
Access, a subscriber IT data provider service, using a test group
of Internet users as monitors.
To carry out the survey, each of the users has had dedicated software
installed in his or her PC, and that software is keeping a tab on their
habits when browsing the Internet. The survey is being run over a three-month
period (November 1998 to January 1999). The first findings come from
data gathered during November 1998.
The results show that when browsing the Web, more than
60 percent of the pages that users access are viewed for less than 20
seconds, and 21 percent are viewed for less than 5 seconds. Nikkei Market
Access reasons that this is because users often spend time jumping around,
via links, to get to the pages they really want to see.
Yahoo (yahoo.co.jp)
was found to be the number one site accessed by most of the monitors
in November -- 37.5 percent of them visited it at least once during
the month. That compares with a corresponding figure of 15.7 percent
for Microsoft Network (msn.com), the second most commonly accessed site.
Comparing users who access the Internet from home with those who access
it from their work place, BIGLOBE (biglobe.ne.jp)
and Nifty Serve (nifty.ne.jp)
ranked second and fourth for home users, respectively, and were ranked
in sixth and eighth place for work place users.
For work place users the top spots were filled by Yahoo (yahoo.co.jp),
Microsoft Network (msn.com), Impress (impress.co.jp),
Microsoft (microsoft.com)
and NTT (ntt.co.jp).
Comparing the habits of male and female users, both sexes shared a common
tendency to frequently visit sites run by Internet service providers.
However, for men the most popular sites were found to be BIGLOBE (biglobe.ne.jp)
and Nifty Serve (nifty.ne.jp), while for women they were Infoweb (infoweb.ne.jp)
and So-net (so-net.ne.jp).
Sites featuring prizes and presents were also found to be popular with
female users.
In terms of the length of time spent viewing sites, both the number two
and number six sites for home users were pornographic sites. What becomes
apparent from the results is that home users mainly visit sites related
to their hobbies and personal interests, while work place users access
those sites that help them with their work.
*How the survey was conducted
The survey is being run from November 1998 to January 1999, inclusive,
with approximately 220 Internet users serving as monitors. The results
detailed in this article were collated from data gathered during the
first month (November 1998).
The monitors were carefully selected, from among all those who applied
to take part by registering at Nikkei Market Access home page, so as
to present a representative sample of Internet users in Japan.
The software for the survey, "InfoGather," developed by NTT Software
Laboratories, was installed in the PCs of these monitors. The InfoGather
software then automatically made a record of all the different Web pages
the users visited, along with the time spent viewing them. These access
logs were then stored and collated with a server prepared by NTT Advanced
Technology Corp.
The aim of the current survey is to establish standards for similar future
surveys. In order to solicit opinions, a detailed report on the survey
is available and can be downloaded at the Nikkei Market Access Web site (in Japanese only).
(Nikkei Market
Access)
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