世論 What Japan Thinks

This set of surveys from goo Ranking looks at what people want from their partners for Christmas, men from their girlfriends and women from their boyfriends, and what people don’t want from their partners for Christmas, men from their girlfriends and women from their boyfriends.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of October 2009 1,162 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 62.9% of the sample were female, 10.5% in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, 21.9% in their forties, 9.0% in their fifties, and 7.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ll stick with the number one choice, whatever. Judging by the huge preference amongst men for whatever, perhaps there is a sense that if they ask their partner for anything she will expect rather more in return, so by not specifying anything hopefully her expections for what she will receive will be lowered. That’s how I think, at least!
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…and heaven knows I’m ragingly horny now, as Morrissey never did sing, which serves by way of an introduction to this survey from goo Ranking into what moments make you wish you yourself were madly in love, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of October 2009 1,162 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 62.9% of the sample were female, 10.5% in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, 21.9% in their forties, 9.0% in their fifties, and 7.0% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

When I was single, I don’t think I ever got a mad desire to rush out and pair off with anyone, it was more just frustration then acceptance of my situation.
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Looking at the alphabet soup of new models for this autumn and winter from docomo and SoftBank, one could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed, with about 20 new handset each. Seeing how widespread this feeling was was one of the questions asked in the 49th regular upgrade needs survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of November 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 14.3% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, and 23.4% aged fifty or older.

I’m overwhelmed by the number, especially as they all have roughly the same price and feature overload. If there was an entry-level phone with no One Seg television, a low-end camera, and no touch screen, flashing lights and other gimmics, I’m sure it could sell.

I’ve also got no intention to buy this season, partially as I’m waiting to see how well the Japanese manufacturers tackle making Android phones for the domestic market, and partially because I spent my toy budget on a netbook.
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In Japan, there’s always some brand or other of soft drink in particular that has a free collectable gift attached to it, such as figurines, mobile phone straps, or even once plant seeds! These food items collectable gifts were the focus of a recent survey from iShare. Oh, a long time ago I did a similar DIMSDRIVE survey.

Demographics

Between the 30th of October and the 5ht of November 2009 537 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.5% of the sample were male, 35.8% in their twenties, 30.5% in their thirties, and 33.7% in their forties.

The last nice collectable set I got was Snoopy lying on various delicacies from around the country, given away free with Pepsi. I’ve never gone out of my way to collect such items, but they do influence my wife’s buying habits to some degree.

A friend of mine once bought a whole case of collectable cards that came with a tiny sweet, so it looked more to me like buying a card that came with a free ebidle item, not the other way round!
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Following on from docomo’s autumn and winter line-up, today we look at SoftBank’s new models, the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.7% in their teens, 19.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Looking at this and the previous docomo survey (I’ll skip the au one if that turns up!) you might be left thinking that that’s an awful lot of new phones! Well, you wouldn’t be the only one, as today another survey was published (I’ll be translating it either tomorrow or Monday) asking that very question.

Looking at the models available, I’m most interested in the one pictured here, the Sharp 942SH KT…
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Docomo have recently announced their new line up for autumn and winter. There are almost no new phones; most of them are just refreshes of existing products with maybe a higher-end camera here and a few extra lighting effects there. One new one is the SC-01B, which seems to be just a Japanese-targetted tweak of Samsung’s Omnia Pro B7330 with a touch panel, but the B code seems to be trying to suggest to the customer that it’s an upgraded BlackBerry Bold. Anyway, these NTT docomo new models were the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

The Photopanel 02 is a new one on me, but as the name suggests it is a digital photo frame. There was also a 01, but I’ve never seen that anywhere!

Looking at the old and new phones last weekend I feel docomo’s range is getting too confused. Looking at Panasonic, for instance (most of the Japanese manufacturers suffer from this), they have two basic clamshell designs (there’s also a third slider phone), but mix and match features, so you can have a touch-pad keyboard and two-way opening, but a low-end camera. Go for a higher mega-pixel count and you lose two-way opening and the inward camera, but get more emoji and a cartoon character theme. They all have basically the same price so it’s really an exercise in frustration trying to decide which to compromise on.

Oh, and the older models haven’t had any noticable price reduction even though they’ve been superceded.
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The following survey from Macromill was very superficially summarised in the press, focusing on just a single question when a lot more interesting data was available regarding mobile phone use of mothers bringing up children.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of November 2009 500 married mothers from the Macromill monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. All the sample was female, of course, and 25.0% were between 20 and 24, 25.0% between 25 and 29, 25.0% between 30 and 34, and 25.0% between 35 and 39 years old.

Some of the figures are very surprising to me (mainly because I’m not a young mother) such as just over half the youngest age group writing a Mommy blog and over a quarter shopping or bidding in auctions at least once a week, although I did expect the number of emails exchanged to be higher!
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Here’s yet another novel subject for a survey from MyVoice, where they look at a subject at which I excel, but my wife just cannot do, namely ironing.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of October 2009 518 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.8% of the sample were male, 30.3% in their twenties, 34.0% in their thirties, and 35.7% in their forties.

One thing that did strike me when I first came to Japan was the lack of ironing of clothes, not just for men but women also, wearing fashionable clothing but covered in wrinkles. I like ironing myself, but I only bother with trousers and shirts. My mother goes as far as ironing socks, which I think is just a bit too keen! (Sorry Mum!)
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at consumer games machines, the second regular look at this topic. I translated the first survey here two months ago.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 7th of November 2009 1,084 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

Every time a console survey comes up I say I’ll have to buy a Wii, and today is no exception, especially as I was recently measured up as being officially metabo, or in English a fat git, so what better way to diet than to get a Wii Fit, with the new release having advanced options tailored towards trimming the waistline.
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Here’s an interesting look from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into USB-connected peripherals.

Demographics

Over the 12th and 13th of November 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 16.5% were in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% int heir forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Note, many of the links in Q1SQ1 below link to fine Christmas stocking fillers like this one:

And some link to utter tat…
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