世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve rather given up on fireworks, as there are just too many people attending them these days so it never seems worth the hassle. Sadly, the numbers planning to attend fireworks this year was not reported, but a recent survey by goo Research conducted in conjunction with Metroguide magazine into fireworks displays came up with other interesting data.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 8th of June 2007 1,092 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All respondents lived in Tokyo or the surrounding three prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. No sex or age breakdown was reported.

The first year we stayed in my previous flat we had a great view of the Takarazuka fireworks from our balcony, but then they build a tower block right in the way, and although we lived barely 500 metres away from the heart of the party, we never bothered watching or going out. From our new flat, if we stand on chairs on the balcony we can just see parts of the Inagawa fireworks, but other than that, we haven’t been to fireworks for ages, and I don’t feel we’re really missing much.
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I’ve never actually participated in an online auction myself, but the stories I hear about eBay’s security problems and about fraudulent auctions fair put me off wanting to try, despite stories about some people getting lucky. So, I was interested to read a column on japan.internet.com about research conducted by goo Research into the subject of internet auctions.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of July 2007 1,077 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was male, 17.7% in their teens, 18.8% in their twenties, 16.2% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 18.9% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

There is, of course, many sites that specialise in highlighting the tat and other interesting rubbish that people try to flog on online auctions; here are a few of my favourites:

Who would buy that?
What the heck?
hexadecimal – the oddities of eBay motors
Strange Japanese auctions
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With the ubiquity of mobile phones and computers with kanji input abilities, both the need to remember and the opportunities for writing kanji, the Japanese language’s main script, has decreased. In addition, worries about education includes whether children are really learning kanji correctly. Thus, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, conducted a survey into kanji ability.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of May 2007 1,101 randomly selected internet users aged 20 or over (presumably chosen from goo Research’s monitor pool) completed this survey. More detailed demographic information is not available.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m studying for the Kanji Kentei examination in order to up my ability, particularly from the point of view of writing. Reading is relatively easy, and with a computer to aid you, electronic entry is not that bothersome at all, yet even my wife, who was always top of the class in school with kanji, occasionally forgets how to write even relatively common characters and has to resort to an electronic dictionary to crib the correct character from.
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Being just back from my own two-week summer holidays – much to the envy dismay of my co-workers who are, I am sure (I think), really just jealous that I can ignore convention and fly off for a decent holiday – it was interesting to see this recent survey conducted by goo Research into 2007 summer holiday plans for company employees.

Demographics

Towards the end of June 2007 1,080 members of goo Research’s monitor panel aged up to 59 years old and employed in private companies completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Fuller demographic information was not presented.

Depressing statistics, aren’t they?

As another point of reference regarding holidays in Japanese companies, Terrie Lloyd had an interesting article on Japan Today regarding the laws and conventions surrounding holidays.

Also note that most Japanese employees take holidays in the middle of August, around the Obon period, a traditional Japanese holiday.
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[part 1] [part 2]

With almost three-quarters of Japanese reckoning that they themselves need to lose a few kilos, and with Billy’s Boot Camp flying off the shelves, not least because for men metabolic syndrome is the in cause of concern, and for women the summer and the associated revealing fashions are fast approaching. This recent survey by DIMSDRIVE Research on weight-loss dieting offered me so many possible headline opportunities, and I succumbed to the temptation to stuff in as many sweet keywords as I could.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 31st of May 2007 DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 8,408 members of its online monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 43.1% of the sample was male, 0.8% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 35.9% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 5.6% aged sixty or older.

Television still remains the most popular source for information on dieting, despite the infamous natto diet scandal at the start of the year. Not terribly suprisingly, I think, Norkia chan is the body shape women most desire, while Hiromi Go, an aging-but-not-really-showing-it singer is tops for men, and not a person I would have considered.
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[part 1] [part 2]

With almost three-quarters of Japanese reckoning that they themselves need to lose a few kilos, and with Billy’s Boot Camp flying off the shelves, not least because for men metabolic syndrome is the in cause of concern, and for women the summer and the associated revealing fashions are fast approaching. This recent survey by DIMSDRIVE Research on weight-loss dieting offered me so many possible headline opportunities, and I succumbed to the temptation to stuff in as many sweet keywords as I could.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 31st of May 2007 DIMSDRIVE Research interviewed 8,408 members of its online monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 43.1% of the sample was male, 0.8% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 35.9% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 5.6% aged sixty or older.

Note that Billy and Norika don’t make an appearance in this survey until tomorrow’s part 2 post, so you’ll just have to wait!

I too, despite being underweight for my height, could do with losing (or moving elsewhere) a couple of kilos of spare tyre. Actually taking more exercise in addition to just walking between stations would help, but just cutting down on snacks is my lazy way out, I suppose.
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If you’ve signed up for dodgy mailing lists or are getting too many calls from your ex on your mobile phone, fortunately almost all Japanese cell phone models have features enabling you to blacklist other phone numbers, email addresses and even complete domains. Personally, all bar one mailing list that I’ve joined has honoured my unsubscribe requests, but whenever I get a dodgy ワンギリ, wan-giri, call, that is a call that just rings once so when you call back they apply assorted high pressure sales or extortion tactics to you, it goes into the banned list on my phone. Recently, NEPRO JAPAN looked at how the average person used mobile phone blacklisting features.DemographicsBetween 10 am on the 7th of June and 3 am on the 8th of June 2007 NEPRO JAPAN made a survey available to the general mobile-phone using public through the menuing systems of NTT DoCoMo’s iMode.
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Despite Japan Probe suggesting that all that is needed for the iPhone to succeed here in Japan is the ability to play back Gundam anime, I suspect there are perhaps a number of features missing that people expect as standard. To find out if there is any truth behind this suspicion, iShare performed a survey on views regarding the iPhone.

Demographics

Between the 26th of June and the 2nd of July 2007, iShare interviewed by means of a private internet-based questionnaire 1,341 members of its CLUB BBQ free mail forwarding service. Men outweighed females 7:3, 18.3% were in their twenties, 48.2% in their thirties, 24.9% in their forties, and the remaining 8.6% were either fifty or older or in their teens. This group is quite geek/otaku oriented, so there is perhaps a higher level of knowledge of technical matters on display here than in similar surveys with other groups. Note also that sample sizes for each question were not explicitly mentioned so my figures might be wrong.

This is a great survey for me: in Q3, why do people expect SoftBank to carry it? Does it fit their image? Do they imagine they will outbid everyone in desperation? For me, au by KDDI seems a better fit, but I also feel SoftBank would pay anything to get the reseller rights. In Q5, the seemingly odd choice of One Seg (digital terrestrial) television support seems to be the feature most people want to see, and almost a third want the browser downgraded to standard mobile site support, both ahead of what I might have predicted, namely electronic cash support and ring tones. Finally, only Sony and Sharp are seen as being able to top the iPhone, whereas I think Nokia might be able to do something, but they don’t even feature in the list of companies!
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If you are looking for iPhone emoji information, here is a story on why no emoji is killing the iPhone.

Rather than text-based smilies that we’ve looked at in earlier surveys, this time we look at the emoji graphical icons that the three main Japanese mobile operators all support to varying degrees, called 絵文字, emoji, picture characters. Here is a full table of the set of emoji common across the three main carriers, NTT DoCoMo, SoftBank, and EzWeb (au and TU-KA from KDDI) so you can see for yourself how good or bad each provider’s art work is. Recently, MyVoice investigated this subject of mobile phone emoji graphical icon usage.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of June 2007 13,158 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a web-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties or older.

Note that some of the newer DoCoMo phones, such as the Panasonic P703i come with an enormous library of pseudo-emoji, implemented as embedded images in HTML mail.
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Despite some mediocre reviews Apple’s new iPhone has been apparently flying off the shelves in the USA, and judging by this survey, many in Japan are hoping for an early release in this country too. This was revealed in a survey recently reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc on the topic of Apple’s iPhone

Demographics

On the 6th of July 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor panel employed in private industry or local or national government successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 76.1% were male, 11.5% in their twenties, 44.4% in their thirties, 32.3% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

I think personally that the iPhone would not do well in its current state in Japan. First and foremost, the lack of 3G speed would be a major issue for many mobile web users. Second, given that most people are used to the designed-to-fit experience of mobile-targeted sites, a full browser is perhaps not all that necessary. Third, Japanese on the whole do not use nor perhaps want SmartPhones; there is no significant Palm or Blackberry-using demographic that need the business-like features. Fourth, and perhaps the biggest deal-breaker, there is no hook to hang your dangly thingies off!
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