世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve never taken part in online auctions myself, although I’ve got a bit of rubbish high quality pre-owned goods that I could always get rid of to bring in a few extra pennies. However, it seems that a large minority of Japanese are busy buying and selling, if this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on auctions is to be believed.

Demographics

On the 6th of March 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample was female, 17.0% in their twenties, 42.1% in their thirties, 23.3% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 8.5% in their sixties.

In a survey last week I commented on how a surprisingly high percentage of Japanese spend most online time on Yahoo! but this suggests many of them are busy with auctions!

If you want to take part in Japanese auctions, but you live overseas or cannot read Japanese too well, I usually recommend Rinkya as somewhere that provides a bidding and forwarding service for these sorts of buyers. I’ve not personally used their services, and I’ve indeed not even seen any reviews of their service, and they are not cheap, but if you need items from Japan they seem a good place to check out.
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Just in case you, like me, cannot relate to many of the people in your office, here’s some tips from goo Ranking, where they asked members of the goo Research monitor panel on how to improve relations with your workmates.

Demographics

Bewteen the 22nd and 25th of January 2008 1,126 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample was female, 3.6% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 7.3% 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.

For me, 1 is difficult as there is the issue of not having a common background, and sometimes trying to communicate is a strain; 2 is a non-starter as there aer few veggie options at our staff canteen, and all of them have the manners of peasants – slurping is the Japanese way, granted, but speaking with your mouth full and shovelling food into your gob is just too much for me to cope with; for 3, my wife is far better company and all they do is talk about work or colleagues that I don’t know; 4, baby stories bore me; 5 I try to do; and for 6 I don’t understand their complaints as we have mutually alien concepts of what work really is. 7 is probably a bad translation…

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the spelling in the headline…
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This is a recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and performed by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on the topic of internet site viewing habits.

Demographics

On the 4th of February 2008 334 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.2% of the sample was male, 9.9% in their twenties, 39.5% in their thirties, 38.0% in their forties, 10.8% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

That’s quite interesting, if not amazing, that three in ten spend most of their time on portals, with of course Yahoo! getting the lion’s share of that. Conversely, over half check five or less sites regularly. For myself, I’d say I spend most time at news sites, and if I count just Google Reader for all my RSS feeds, there’s less than 10 that I regularly check.
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The big health buzzword last year and this has been metabolic syndrome, or metabo as it is abbreviated in Japan. For Japanese people to be diagnosed as metabolic syndrome you must have at least three of the following five signs. For men, waist over 90 cm, for women over 80 cm; blood pressure greater than 130/85 mmHg, neutral fat of 150 mg/dL or more; HDL (good cholesterol) of under 40 mg/dL for men, 50 mg/dL for women; and blood sugar over 100 mg/dL. However, there appears to be slight regional variations for these measures. Anyway, DIMSDRIVE Research recently performed a survey to find out about health checks.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 31st of January 2008 9,863 members of the DIMSDRIVE Monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 14.8% in their twenties, 36.3% in their thirties, 29.1% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 5.6% aged sixty or older.

All Japanese companies are required to provide regular health checks for their employees; the company I work for once a year gets everyone in for eyes, ears, blood pressure, urine test, poo test and chest xray, and for older people barium meal, ECG, and blood test. In addition they have another annual test of physical strength, with grip strength measurement, bike riding, sit-ups, reaction time, blood vessel hardness and balancing on one leg.
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Although previous surveys have shown that 4% used P2P software at the time of the survey, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Research on the use of audio-visual contents on home computers shows a slightly different picture.

Demographics

Between the 28th of February and the 3rd of March 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor panel with a computer at home completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, with 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

Note that Marsh Research are a new-to-me research company.

I don’t bother downloading music myself, but I may or may not have occasionally downloaded a movie or two of dubious provenance, not that I actually ever have time to watch them! Having said that, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is playing in the background as I translate this article.
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My new place, being a bit posh, is serviced by a Co-op home delivery service that perhaps at least 10% take advantage of, but we’ve never tried, and I don’t know if people order via the phone or by the internet. Wifey also occasionally orders ready-made foods via phone, fax, and internet, so this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into food ingredient online home delivery services was of interest to me. Note that this is for ingredients, not prepared food delivery.

Demographics

On the 22nd of February 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor team employed in either the public or private sector took part in a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.3% were male, 17.9% were in their twenties, 36.4% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, 6.1% in their fifties, and 8.2% in their sixties. Note that usually JR Tokai Express has 80% male when they survey employed people, so I don’t know if the more even sex balance is due to them selecting a more balanced group, an error in the report, or self-selection.

I suppose the main thing stopping me from using online ordering is that for fresh items, I really want to be able to cast my eye over them to check that I am picking the best available, not just good enough.
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One online game I see heavily advertised in Japan is a free online RPG Maple Story, although I’ve never actually played it myself, and I take no responsibility from any addiction caused by clicking through that link! To see what the average Japanese person plays at online, MyVoice performed a survey on online games.

Demographics

Over the first five days of February 2008 15,447 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

I used to play online games, starting with the sadly departed Meridian 59, then beta testing Ultima Online, Everquest as both a beta and a paid-for player, then finally Asheron’s Call for quite a bit until I found out that being an anti-social git meant I didn’t get very far ahead. I still miss Meridian 59, as it was small enough to form real friendships, in fact even leading to a real-life meeting with a bunch of other people once. I don’t think I’d ever do that again as there seems to be far too many weirdos about these days, or maybe it’s just I’m a bit older and less naive.
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Yahoo! is stupidly popular in Japan for just about everything, it seems, so this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into Yahoo! JAPAN reveals what people do at the portal.

Demographics

On the 28th of February 2008 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 82.7% of the sample were male, 10.9% in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

As suspected, last week’s survey that claimed only 18% used a portal’s train scheduler seems to be wrong, as here nearly half of all users say they use Yahoo! Transit to find their connections. I’m surprised at the large number using maps, however, as there are plenty of competing services that many businesses directly link to.
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Here’s another interesting ranking survey from goo Ranking, this time on what aspects of city living has one come to expect.

Demographics

Bewteen the 22nd and 25th of January 2008 1,126 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample was female, 3.6% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 35.1% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 7.3% 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.

Full trains is still the one that gets me, and forces me to get up about an hour earlier than I really want to. I actually changed the line I commute on because of just one too many incidents of being squeezed into an already over-full train. My employer offers work from home, but I cannot take that up as I doubt if I’d get much work done! When I first moved to the big city in Scotland the one thing I noticed the most was that it was a bit dodgy to walk home at night, but fortunately such worries are not present in Japan.

Photo by Atari, Gracinha & Marco.
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This is a most interesting survey, given that there is currently being quite a shake-up in the mobile phone market, with SoftBank finally getting their act in gear and finally reversing their many year decline. To see how the market is changing, MyVoice conducted a survey into mobile phone service provider image. This is the seventh time this survey has been conducted, once a year since 2002.

Demographics

Over the first five days of February 2008 15,391 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.

A white dog and a black guy are responsible for reversing SoftBank’s decline. I’ve heard people complain that there are racist undertones as the black guy is the offspring of a Japanese woman and dog, but I think that’s reading far too much into things. Here’s a blog translating one advert and here’s news of the dog releasing a photo book.

Note that today NTT DoCoMo have announced that they are joining au and SoftBank in offering free calls 24 hours per day between family members.
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