世論 What Japan Thinks

This week’s fun from goo Ranking is a look at the secrets of keeping that newly-wed feeling going, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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. I’m not sure if unmarried people were excluded or asked to imagine what they should do.

Looking at the men’s list, I know to my cost that number two is very, very important, but I’m not sure that number ten is really advisable as a general rule!

Talking of newly-weds, one of my Japanese colleagues recently got married, and shortly afterwards went off to a work drinking party where the long-time married guys were giving him advice. The key was to be really selfish for the first month so that the ground rules get established, as being too cooperative straight off the bat would only lead to trouble further down the line!
Read the rest of this entry »

Since I started running an ad blocker (Ad Muncher), I don’t see any advertisements in search results. However, the use of such software was not investigated in this recent survey published on japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into the topic of internet advertising. This is the first in a regular (monthly, presumably) series.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of November 2008 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sampe were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 27.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that this report concentrated on search results advertising, but the full survey covered many more kinds of internet advertising.

As you might have noticed, I’ve started with contextual advertisements in my RSS feed. Perhaps next month’s survey might cover them, but given the low figures for RSS usage, I don’t hold out much hope!
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another installment of the goo Research mobile phone upgrade needs survey, the 41st in the series of monthly looks at people’s upgrade plans. This time one question looks at the Autumn and Winter 2008 models, with all three major carriers having just released, or being in the process of releasing, new models.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 14th of November 2008 exactly 1,000 members of the goo Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were female, 1.1% in their teens. 18.9% in their twenties. 38.3% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, and 16.5% aged fifty or older.

In Q1 it is interesting to note that SoftBank is down a couple of percentage points compared to the average level reported, however this might just be a sampling blip for this survey.

I currently have no plans to upgrade, although on Sunday I might look at a shop I know that should be selling this summer’s models at knock-down prices as most of the new phones from docomo are minor cosmetic revisions of the summer phones; Panasonic has added a two-way keyboard to go from a P906i to a P01-A, Sharp an 8 megapixel camera differentiating their SH-01A from the SH906i, and NEC have a fancy ball joint on their N-01A.

I have my eye on the Sharp SH-04A smartphone, not out until February or March 2009, as I was tempted to jump ship to Willcom for their Sharp 03 earlier this year. However, I’ll have to wait and see how they price it, but I’m not terribly hopeful of getting a decent deal.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you have been following the Japanese blogs or news wires this week, you surely must have seen headlines like – well, I thought I saw headlines, but they now seem to have disappeared! Anyway, there was quite a bit of fuss about 53% of Japanese seeing public safety problems due to an increase in tourism, but what is the truth behind that headline? Read the full details from the survey by the Cabinet Office Japan into Tourism Nation Japan and the Japan Tourism Agency.

Demographics

3,000 adults from all over the country were randomly selected from resident registers, and they were visited for face-to-face interviews between the 16th and 26th of October 2008. 1,853 people, or 61.8%, were available and completed the questionnaire. A breakdown by age and sex was not presented, however.

Note that the questions below were part of a bigger survey on other unreported topics.

Q3 is the question that has sparked the controversy, with the negative answers being singled out. My personal opinion is that since the increase in tourism is mostly from Korea and China, countries with none-too-friendly a view of Japan, and the Chinese especially have a reputation for being ill-mannered, and they are the biggest foreign criminal element in Japan, I can see one reason why the figure is high. Of course, one has to contrast that with the equally large percentage who expect the increase in tourists to decrease such prejudice through mutual understanding.
Read the rest of this entry »

I remember last time I was looking for an electronic book survey two came along at once, and this time too I have seen a couple in quick succession, so I’ll again double them up. Both surveys were reported on by japan.internet.com, and the first was on electronic books and conducted by iBridge Research Plus, and the second on book purchasing online and conducted by Marsh Inc.

Demographics

For the iBridge survey, between the 30th of October and the 1st of November 2008 300 members of the iBridge monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.3% of the sample were female, 16.0% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or older. For the Marsh survey, between the 31st of October and the 4th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% 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.

In Q2 from iBridge, 青空文庫, Aozora Bunko, Blue Sky Library, is a great place to find stuff to read, although the formatting could do with some work to be more friendly to modern browsers that can display readings of kanji over the characters rather than inline after them. However, this is a list of viewers for Aozora Bunko. The last book I read from there was Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is a nice short story for intermediate-level students. I also don’t understand why they restricted the question to PC users, since as can be seen from the viewer page, there are suitable readers for almost everything including an iPhone. Do any of my iPhone using readers want to do a road test of these packages?
Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first things one notices, indeed, one cannot avoid getting one’s senses assaulted by them regularly in Japan, is the ubiquitous pachinko parlour. Usage or otherwise of them was the subject matter of this recent survey by MyVoice.

Demographics

Over the first five days of November 2008 15,182 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 6% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

The only good thing about pachinko are the adverts; one doing the rounds right now is for Star Wars pachinko – I’d love to see Danny Choo doing his Stormtrooper act playing one of these! Another enjoyable one is this:

Whenever I get around to upgrading my desktop display, I think it will be a wide-screen monitor that I go for; sadly, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into home computers did not discuss people’s purchase intentions.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of November 2008 1,034 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

It’s interesting to note in Q1 that notebooks outnumber desktops at home, and surprising to see one in four notebooks are wide-screen, even allowing for dual-head users with an extra monitor plugged in.
Read the rest of this entry »

At the world marches on, fixtures from our childhood become outdated and start to disappear, leaving just an empty feeling behind. This survey from goo Ranking looked at what disappearing items make the Japanese feel lonely

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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.

I can think of a lot of intangible items I miss, but as for the tangible, I do miss line printers with fan-fold paper! As a developer, running over a set of A4 pages with too much word-wrapping is just not as satisfying nor as productive as a heap of fan-fold. From the list, 18, quiz programs with members of the public is the one I can most identify with.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sure in school and university we all got our fill of scientific laws and principles that we have long-since forgotten bar the names. To see how the Japanese fare on this, goo Ranking performed this survey on remembered names but forgotton details of scientific principles.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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.

I’d never heard of the Mpemba effect before, and the first one I could definitely explain is Schrödinger’s Cat. I got Einstein’s theories confused – E=mc2 is special relativity; general relativity is gravity and time dilation. I only managed three others I could recall! How did you get on?
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s perhaps a meme (sorry for using that word; I dislike it, but it fits here) that has overstayed its welcome on the internet, with places like FAIL Blog documenting failure in pictures, or The Register with its slightly too swearie-word-filled Fail and You column, but it was the best way to headline this survey from goo Ranking on sensing that moment of defeat, to translate just a bit too literally.

Demographics

Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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.

My FAIL! moment that I often have is that once every two weeks is paper and metal rubbish day, the next or sometimes previous day is plastic and glass, so it’s going out to throw out stuff on the second day and realising that I’ve got the days back to front.
Read the rest of this entry »