News Aggregators Quite Popular In Japan – Debate On Their Validity Continues
A survey by Dentsu Public Relations carried out last month showed that nearly twenty percent of Japanese people are heavy news aggregator users. These kinds of websites, known as matome saito in Japanese, collect news and information from various news sites in one convenient location. However, despite their popularity, their legitimacy has been questioned repeatedly due to the problems of recycling copyrighted content. As their popularity in Japan continues to increase, we will probably see increased focus on regulating and removing news aggregators that are egregious in unauthorized use of copyrighted content.
The Study
The survey included 1200 Japanese residents, more than a third of whom use the most popular news aggregators. While about 75% of them used news aggregator websites once a week, nearly 18.5% used these websites daily. Only about thirty percent of the people interviewed saw the news on television after seeing it online. This shows that in Japan, this medium has become an established news source, with nearly a third of the population receiving their news on these kinds of websites and on social media platforms. Most importantly, news aggregators often serve as a quick, information-packed diversion for younger Japanese residents, where the use of news aggregators was considerably higher than the average. By customizing the kinds of news they want to receive, they can find information they are interested in at a glance.
Are News Aggregator Sites Ethical?
News aggregator sites have been the subject of much debate in Japan. One of the most popular news boards in Japan, 2Channel, recently started to block websites and blogs that would collect their content. This is not only an ongoing problem in Japan, but also in the West. For example, the Associated Press (AP) has sued a news aggregator service recently because of problems with the way they use AP content without a license and charging their clients a fee. When it comes to these kinds of websites, the line between social media distribution of news headlines, news clippings, and actually stealing content is blurry. Search engines can be customized to act as news aggregators and actually create copies of copyrighted content, but this kind of use is actually accepted by the courts.
Advantages and Disadvantages of News Aggregator Use Over Traditional Media
Particularly for the younger crowd, news aggregators are a handy source of entertainment and those that integrate social media also allow sharing and commenting on news with friends online. With the unique kind of obsessive smartphone use in Japan, it is natural for these kinds of websites to gain prominence. However, news aggregators have their disadvantages as well, as was seen in the March 11 tsunami incident last year.
Although social media and smartphones are extremely important, traditional media outlets still play a very important role in Japanese society. In fact, the vast majority of people interviewed in Japan considered that television was their main source of information in the days following this natural disaster. In fact, more people used radio as their most important source of information than smartphones, probably due to numerous Internet outages and an overload of the mobile network. This anomaly is almost certainly due to a generational shift. Analyzing the numbers, it is clear that the younger generation’s use of mobile devices, news aggregators, and social media is staggeringly higher than older Japanese residents.
What This Tells Us About the Japanese Market
This disproportionate use of mobile devices as news sources indicates that there is a very important potential market in Japan. Trends clearly show that use of news aggregators will increase in future as the present younger generation starts to become the dominant force in Japan’s population. With news organizations like AP starting to get into the news aggregator sector themselves, we will probably see traditional online news reporting being gradually replaced by a model derived from today’s news aggregators.
For news aggregator site owners, a reliable server host is important in order to deliver unhinged quality service to those who want to be updated on current news and events. This feature is related to autoscaling and high availability. Read more about these features on GMO Cloud’s Features page.
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About the Guest Author:
Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.
