A recent survey reported on by ITmedia and conducted by ASCII Media Works looked at Mac users, in particular contrasting them with Windows users.
Demographics
In mid-September 2008 278 Mac users and 494 Windows PC users who were memebers of the ASCII General Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The age and sex profiles were not noted, although given the small amount of housewives and given that ASCII is a computer magazine, the respondent pool appears to be mostly male.
There’s so many great figures in this survey – Mac users earn more, are more creative and are more interested in foreign goods, whereas Windows users are more conservative and like the same old same. The most stunning figure, however, was for liked mobile phone manufacturers in Q7; not surprisingly over two in five Mac users were iPhone fans, but a surprisingly-low 5% of Windows users expressed an interest. Following up, Q8 showed that over half as many again Mac users were with SoftBank; remember, SoftBank carry the iPhone, and with similar percentages for other carriers, one must conclude that around one in ten Mac owners have bought iPhones to accompany their phones from other carriers. Read the rest of this entry »
Another recent survey from MyVoice looked this time at the sense of taste.
Demographics
Over the first five days of September 2008 15,245 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties.
Many Japanese seem to make a fuss over the inability of foreigners to eat anko, a sweet bean paste usually made from adzuki beans, which I have never had a problem with. Certain kinds of seaweed have never been a problem, but natto defeats me every time. I used to hate Brie and other soft French cheeses until I went to Normandie and had it fresh there, so perhaps I need to find a similarly-fresh kind of natto, not the cheap supermarket plastic packs.
If you’ve lived in Japan for any amount of time you might suspect that just about the only times that get resold are books, music and software, at places like the entertainingly-named Book Off, but to find out what other transactions take place, MyVoice looked at the buying and selling of used goods.
Demographics
Over the first five days of September 2008 15,250 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties.
I did once buy a Gameboy Advance new then some second-hand software, but I left the device on a flight to Amsterdam! I’ve bought and sold through Book Off, although it’s a bit scary to visit their shop and see mile upon mile of books to browse through! I also once sold a digital camera back to a shop, but that was a highly unsatisfactory experience. I have my old dead computer to dispose of, but I don’t think I could get any money for that, so I’ll drop it off with a recycler somewhere. Read the rest of this entry »
MyVoice recently published their second survey into pet life, a rather too direct translation of the Japanese title of the survey. I also translated the results of their first look at pet life almost three years ago, for reference.
Demographics
Over the first five days of September 2008 15,293 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online survey. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties.
When I wrote about cat pee and poo recently one question that came up there too was about shedding hair. One of my readers, sasutan, was kind enough to highlight the FURminator as an effective means of reducing shedding. However, some investigation on the internet priced it at around 10,000 yen (US$100), but further investigation showed that an alternative, the ShedBuster is widely available in Japan at under a third of the price, and apparently even uses the identical metal brush head supplier as the FURminator. One especially nice bonus of these undercoat brushes is that unlike ordinary brushes they don’t cause huge clouds of hair, but instead almost all the hair clumps in the tines, so there’s fewer problems for those with cat allergies, and of course less dead hair also means less dandruff, the cause of most cat allegies, so it’s a win-win device. Read the rest of this entry »
I left the UK just as alcopops, fizzy drink-like youth-targeted cheap and relatively high in alcohol drinks started to become a serious problem due to their appeal to under-age drinkers. In Japan there is chuhai, and this is what MyVoice looked at in their sixth canned chuhai survey.
Demographics
Over the first five days in September 2008 15,054 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 15% in their twetnies, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 20% in their fifties.
According to the dictionary, chuhai is an abbreviation of shochu highball, Japanese spirits with tonic water, although the canned form often bears little resemblence to its humble origin. Alcohol content varies from 4% to 7%, and due to low tax rates one can of supermarket own-brand costs 88 yen (84 US cents or 45 UK pennies) for 330 millitres, close to half the price of branded beer, or about a third less than happoshu, and even cheaper when you consider the price per unit of alcohol.
By the way, yes, Suntory Calorie. actually does have a full stop after Calorie, it’s not a misprint! Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 2nd and 4th of September 2008 412 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% were male, 17.5% in their twenties, 48.5% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, and 8.7% in their teens or aged fifty or older.
My least favourite thing about mayonnaise is trying to spell it, and my favourite is the Kewpie advertisements.
One of the eternal questions is “Coke or Pepsi?”, which is also one question from this survey from iShare on cola. I was going to joke that tomorrow I will be doing “Boxers or briefs?”, but then I remembered that I’d already done that one!
Demographics
Between the 29th of August and the 1st of September 2008 464 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online survey. 54.7% of the sample were male, 14.2% in their twenties, 47.4% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, and 10.1% in their teens or aged fifty or older.
I’m a Diet Coke person myself, which in Japan actually contains a little bit of sugar. I can cope with Diet Pepsi, but the full sugar efforts are disgusting. The Diet Coke with added vitamins is pretty awful too. How about you?
Although the main holiday season is over, this survey by DIMSDRIVE Research into booking lodgings for domestic travel was actually conducted in May, although DIMSDRIVE only got round to publishing it this month.
Demographics
Between the 14th and 22nd of August 2008 9,862 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were female, 1.0% in their teens, 14.3% in their twenties, 34.5% in their thirties, 30.2% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 6.1% aged sixty or older.
The only domestic travel I’ve taken this year was a three-day business trip to Tokyo, but this survey is concerned with leisure travel However, wifey booked a night at Kansai Airport before our flight overseas via the internet – if you do stay at the Nikko hotel there it’s well worth joining their members’ club as you get a free room upgrade ticket for your troubles. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the first five days of August 2008 14,782 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% were in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% in their fifties.
The Prius is a lovely car which I always try to rent when I need a car in Japan. I always use Toyota Rent-A-Car. If you pay using a (Japanese only?) credit card you get a 5% discount. The cars are fully-equipped with a CD player, good satellite navigation system (Japanese only!) and ETC automatic toll payment machine, if you have a card for that. I’m picking up one the weekend after next, and it works out at about 8,000 yen per day.
My favourite hobby – well, it’s not really a hobby, just an excuse to get some fresh air – is doing the garden, although it mostly consists of cutting the grass, watering the plants, and following directions on where to place everything! This survey from MyVoice looked at how the Japanese approached gardening.
Demographics
Over the first five days of August 2008 14,858 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 18% in their fifties.
I wonder if the keenness to grow vegetables is in any way connected with the recent rises in prices of many goods? From our garden we get mint and chives, mainly. We got a Brussels sprout plant but it’s still to sprout. Two years ago we planted oba/shiso and got a huge crop; with 10 leaves costing 80 to 100 yen per pack, and us going through up to 50 per week, 200 yen for a seedling from the garden centre is a wonderful bargain. We’ve got a lot of roses, but although they are lovely in the spring, they really suffer in the summer and we’re just beginning to get some new flowers through, but they’re barely a quarter of the size! Oh, and three weeks ago I had great fun relieving stress by hacking a path through two overgrown bushes. Read the rest of this entry »
A recent survey reported on by ITmedia and conducted by ASCII Media Works looked at Mac users, in particular contrasting them with Windows users.
Another recent survey from MyVoice looked this time at the 
If you’ve lived in Japan for any amount of time you might suspect that just about the only times that get resold are books, music and software, at places like the entertainingly-named 
MyVoice recently published their second survey into 
I left the UK just as alcopops, fizzy drink-like youth-targeted cheap and relatively high in alcohol drinks started to become a serious problem due to their appeal to under-age drinkers. In Japan there is chuhai, and this is what MyVoice looked at in their 
One of the eternal questions is “Coke or Pepsi?”, which is also one question from this survey from iShare on 
Although the main holiday season is over, this survey by DIMSDRIVE Research into 
With other surveys showing that 
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