Between the 25th of February and the 2nd of March 2009 417 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 40.0% in their twenties, 26.4% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.
I don’t own any portable audio players – well, actually my mobile phone can play music, but I’ve never used the feature. My wife has an MD player lying around that she never uses, but I have a cunning plan for it that doesn’t involve music… Right at the moment I could use a portable player as there is a rather drunk or mentally disturbed guy muttering away to himself as I’m trying to concentrate on translating, but I digress. On to the survey! Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not sure if the phrasing in the story title is familiar to many, but in the UK where Harlequin novels are called Mills and Boon, the popular generic term for such style of romantic novels is the bodice-ripper. Anyway, that title serves to give away the results of a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone novels.
Demographics
On the 2nd of March 2008 300 female members of the Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.0% of the sample were in their twenties, 49.0% in their thirties, and 26.0% in their forties.
I’ve never read a mobile phone novel or even a novel on a mobile phone for that matter, although when I last translated a similar survey I mentioned that there are many readers for reading books on most types of mobiles, but like many other things I talk about I’ve never quite had time to try it out! Read the rest of this entry »
This is a rather interesting set of results from a survey conducted by MyVoice into the matter of music, where music is understood to be the playback of recorded media for personal consumption, as concerts or musicals do not feature in the answers, and background music in shops is also explicitly excluded.
Demographics
Over the first five days of February 2009 15,247 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.
My active music listening is limited to musicals, on stage and on screen – I enjoyed Mamma Mia the film, but not as much as the stage. I can forgive Pierce Brosnan’s rather flat singing but he needed a shave, The Winner Takes It All was about twice as long as it needed to be, and the reworking of the stage story just didn’t click with me.
From the survey, putting Q2 and Q6 together one can perhaps conclude that a lot of people are ripping rental CDs to their PC, an activity that is, I believe, actually legal in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s now about a year since acTVila launched, a facility for using your television as a media centre, allowing download of movies (and other contents) on demand for both free and pay contents. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this subject of acTVila.
Demographics
Between the 12th and 15th of February 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.l7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.
I’m very surprised to see that a quarter of all digital television watchers have plugged their television into the internet. Although my HDD player is network ready, I’ve never had the urge to plug it in as I don’t really see what the point is. It would enable me to program it remotely from a mobile phone, but I’ve never been in the situation where I thought this might be useful.
On the other hand, I have got a bunch of ideas about what features might encourage more people to plug in which I plan to talk about at work next Monday, so I’d better not say anything here as my employer will no doubt want to bury them in the patent process.
Oh, and sorry for the delay in posting, but I’m in Athens on a business trip, and I couldn’t get my internet to work in the airport lounges along the way! Read the rest of this entry »
Over the first five days of January 2009 14,034 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually used a commercial movie streaming or delivery service myself, and I can’t really see myself paying for it. I get Star Channel on cable, so I suppose if they offered a similar service for download direct to my DVD recorder, I perhaps could pay a monthly fee. AcTVila offers that sort of service through one’s television and Blu-ray recorder, but as can be seen here the take-up is quite low, but then again it is a new service.
Note that although I refer to movies in the translation below, the services also cover re-runs of television shows, etc. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 23th and 29th of December 2008 709 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.0% of the sample were male, 12.1% in their twenties, 47.5% in their thirties, 30.7% in their forties, 7.6% in their fifties, and 2.0% in their teens or aged sixty or older.
I’d put Osaka higher up the list in Q1, but I’m biased! I’d also put Kanazawa higher, as it’s Kyoto without so many tourists, and I really enjoyed the one time I visited.
I wouldn’t subject anyone to Japanese curry, but I’d put Japanese-style snacks higher. I think that refers to Japanese flavours in Western-style sweets like chestnut Kit-Kats or wasabi (horseradish-like) flavoured crisps, rather than traditional Japanese confectionary based around bean-paste.
Judging by another survey, water-squirting toilets are popular amongst the foreign population, but game arcades and Scissors-Paper-Stone are hardly unique Japanese features. On the other hand, some of the machines in Japanese arcades have to be seen to be believed, so perhaps the first is a good choice! Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an interesting topic from MyVoice: since last year was the 29th anniversary of the animation character Kinnikuman, they performed a survey on that very topic of Kinnikuman, which translates as Muscleman.
Demographics
Over the first five days of December 2008 14,858 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 8% aged fifty or older.
If you’re wondering why the 29th anniversary, the digits 2 and 9 may be read as ni and ku. Additionally, the Kin in his name can also mean Friday, so kin-ni-ku is Friday 29th, which is why that becomes Kinnikuman Day.
If you want more than enough information on Kinnikuman in Japanese, there is the Nikupedia, which as the names suggests is a version of Wikipedia dedicated to Kinnikuman.
For a bit of trivia relevant to English speakers (by the way, the characters were released in the USA in the mid-eighties as M.U.S.C.L.E), the ending theme song for one of the series was sung by Kent Derricott, a Mormon missionary to Japan who became a television personality over here. Here is the video proof:
Last month’s survey on Blu-ray and HD DVD was rightly criticised for rather dubious data, let alone the small sample size, so hopefully I can make amends with this detailed report from DIMSDRIVE into Blu-ray recorders.
Demographics
Between the 15th and 30th of October 2008 9,141 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 1.2% in their teens, 12.8% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, 30.5% in their forties, 15.% in their fifties, and 7.2% aged sixty or older. By household salary, 7.4% earned less than 2 million yen a year, 20.1% less than 4 million yen, 23.5% less than 6 million yen, 15.5% less than 8 million yen, 10.2% less than 10 million yen, 7.8% less than 15 million yen, and 1.9% over 15 million yen. 13.6% didn’t know or declined to answer.
When I reported last month’s survey it got picked up by an obscure corner of Kotaku, which was then picked up by another online mag and featured prominently, even getting onto Google News UK’s front page, but any credit to me got lost on the way. Mind you, if I had got a link back, I’d probably have had my old server blow up even earlier!
Eikichi Yazawa is an aging rocker who features in Sony adverts like this one:
With now just over two and half years until the analogue switch-off in Japan, this recent survey from goo Research and reported by japan.internet.com into digital terrestrial television broadcasts (the fourth regular survey) shows usage almost reaching the half-way mark.
Demographics
Between the 5th and 12th of December 2008 1,083 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.7% in their forties, and 28.1% aged fifty or older.
Compared with last month’s survey, viewing rates are up 2.5% percentage points. If we subtract the 11 people who don’t have televisions, digital (excluding one seg or digital satellite and cable, etc) is now past 50% of viewers.
In Q2, the restrictions discussed are called Dubbing 10, a system that allows up to 10 copies to be made from one recording, but the copies themselves may not be recopied. All broadcasts have such a restriction by default.
With the demise of HD DVD in February 2008 as a format for recorded media, ths recent suvery from goo Research reported on by japan.internet.com into video devices showed some surprising results.
Demographics
Between the 27th and 30th of November 2008 1,081 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.3% in their thrties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
I really do find the HD DVD drive ownership stunningly high! It would be interesting to investigate exactly why, and whether or not these drives are still in use or just gathering dust.
Here’s an interesting survey on portable audio players from iShare showing how sold-state music has muscled out MD players, the leader from just three and a half years ago.
I’m not sure if the phrasing in the story title is familiar to many, but in the UK where Harlequin novels are called Mills and Boon, the popular generic term for such style of romantic novels is the bodice-ripper. Anyway, that title serves to give away the results of a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
It’s now about a year since acTVila launched, a facility for using your television as a media centre, allowing download of movies (and other contents) on demand for both free and pay contents. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this subject of 
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Here’s an interesting topic from MyVoice: since last year was the 29th anniversary of the animation character Kinnikuman, they performed a survey on that very topic of 
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With now just over two and half years until the analogue switch-off in Japan, this recent survey from goo Research and reported by japan.internet.com into 
With the 
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