世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent very detailed survey from goo Research, in conjuction with social media consultants Looops Communications, took a look at corporate Twitter accounts.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of July 2010 315 members of the goo Research online monitor group who used a corporate Twitter account as part of their job completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Sex and age demographics were not reported as they were not particularly significant; instead company size and industry was reported. 32.1% worked in companies of under 10 employees, 27.0% between 10 and 99 employees, 21.0% between 100 and 999 employees, 19.0% with 1,000 or more employees, and 1.0% just didn’t know. 22.9% were in manufacturing, 10.2% in distribution or small shops, 5.4% in finance, 55.9% in service industries, and 5.7% other.

Note that although the sample is small, all the respondents were corporate Tweeters, so the accuracy of the data should be high.

My employer just released a new corporate social media hub site, combining Twitter and YouTube feeds. There might also be a blog, but I’ll be surprised if it is anything other than just a press release archive. I don’t think there’s an active mixi account, and there’s certainly no Facebook account for the Japanese side.
Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t really know what to make of this recent survey from iShare into preferences for telephone call direction, but I present it anyway.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 26th of July 2010 476 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 29.8% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, and 40.1% in their forties.

In Q2, people were asked the reasons for their answer; those who wanted to make calls said for example it was because they could call in their own free time and wanted to keep in touch. On the other hand, those who wanted to receive calls said it was because they didn’t know if the other person was free, they were happy to get called, and they were just not very good at making calls.

I hate making calls myself even in English, and I also hate getting calls in the office – I often just ignore my phone and hope someone else picks it up. If I’m the only person in the office, I just ignore the phone completely.
Read the rest of this entry »

With a longer and hotter summer than usual in Japan, tempers inevitably fray, so goo Ranking took a look at what tends to be the cause of lovers’ tiffs in summer, for both men and women. However, looking at the answers there seems to be no pattern to which side starts the argument.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of July 2010 1,159 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% of the sample were female, 12.4% in their teens, 21.1% in their twenties, 28.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 6.4% 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.

What most irritates me in summer (although it hasn’t started an argument, yet…) is my wife’s constant utterances of “it’s hot!” roughly every two minutes, even when inside air-conditioned facilities. Her cooler settings at bed time are also far too low, but I just snuggle up a bit more…
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into chat services found that more people were aware of, and used, internet telephone than instant messaging services.

Demographics

On the 5th of August 2010 1,069 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 17.0% in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 16.0% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Back in March I translated identical questions from a different survey company. That time the sample was only 300 people, so one would expect this goo Research one to be more accurate, but even still it’s hard to explain why the last time the top four were MSN text, Yahoo! text, Skype voice and Skype text, but this time is a reversal with Skype voice, Skype text, Yahoo! text and MSN text.
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent survey from iShare into relationships with one’s boss revealed some interesting facets of the worker-boss relationship in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of July 2010 427 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 31.1% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.

I do regularly but not frequently talk to my boss about career advancement, but I’ve never had a decent answer from him, thus I’d be in the 27.4% in Q1SQ4. I’ve only had one direct boss that I can say I respected totally; my employer seems to breed large number of middle management who do not want to rock the boat and would prefer to stay in the office until all hours producing low-value but high-volume reports rather than asking why the information is needed.
Read the rest of this entry »

Around two in five of the online population questioned here to be precise have heard of it, although usage of PayPal is still very low according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 28th of July and the 1st of Augut 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I’ve bought from the US, the UK and Australia through PayPal, although it’s always for software or services. My most frequent transactions are with Namecheap for domain name purchase – I can’t recommend them enough, especially if like me you’d got fed up with GoDaddy’s upselling every time you try to make a simple transaction. If you do decide to use them, don’t forget that they also have an official coupon code blog where you can get a few cents or dollars off each transaction.
Read the rest of this entry »

iShare took a look at young people’s opinions regarding their mother’s cooking, in particular the flavour that reminds them of home. I cannot think of a British expression, but it’s the stereotypical Italian “Just like Mama used to make” that the survey is about.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 27th of July 2010 454 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 27.8% in their twenties, 36.6% in their thirties, and 35.7% in their forties.

I don’t think I have any particular taste of home – perhaps salmon is the closest, but that is more to do with the freshness of the salmon rather than the cooking per se. Just before you complain, Mum, it’s that I’m happy to get anything cooked for me rather than nothing being memorable. If we expand to cover baking, I’ve tried to reproduce her scones and pancakes but with very, very little success!
Read the rest of this entry »

In the fifteenth regular monthly survey by goo Research into terrestrial digital television broadcasts, japan.internet.com reported that very nearly three in four are now terrestrial digital ready, whether it be with television or video equipment.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 28th of July 2010 1,085 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.8% agerd sixty or over.

The switchover to digital is now less than a year away, with the 24th of July 2011 being the analogue switch-off day. Although the news last weekend reported that television and other device sales over the summer softened, affecting the GDP adversely, with the eco point system due to end in December, I predict that the autumn and early winter will see the sales of televisions pick up again as both deadlines approach.

I need to buy two televisions; one for home, and one with a built-in hard disk recorder for the parents-in-law as they have been muttering that a tuner box will not be enough.
Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s get the What Japan Thinks show back on the road after the holidays with this look by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into home appliances, the sixth time this regular survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Between the 28th of July and the 3rd of August 2010 1,041 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

I did buy one electrical device last month, a Brother MyMio MFC-735CD phone/fax/answering machine/printer/scanner/SD card reader/kitchen sink device (linked US version has no wireless handset, but has networking). Our old telephone’s screen suddenly went blank, so we checked out new ones in a nearby electrical store and nearly bought there, but we instead used kakaku.com to do a price check (if you’re in Japan, don’t buy anything without checking them out first!) and found Amazon just 106 yen off the cheapest, so of course with they being a big name we ordered from there. We placed the order at about 5 pm on Sunday evening, and even with just their standard free shipping it arrived the next day at about 2:30 pm!

In Q2, note that three of the top four items, digital televisions, air conditioners, and fridges, award eco points for purchase.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following on from last week’s boyfriend beach FAIL, goo Ranking published the other side of the story, what men do not want to see their girlfriends doing at the beach or in the pool.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 23rd of June 2010 1,137 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.1% of the sample were female, 8.0% in their teens, 20.4% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, 23.9% in their forties, 9.2% in their fifties, and 7.2 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. In addition, this question was for males only.

I’m not really sure why her spirally body hair is such a problem, as it should have been covered by the option above. Furthermore, I’ve never really noticed any Japanese women with enough body hair to make it an issue.

And don’t ask me why doing the butterfly well is a problem for men!

Finally, not surprisingly showing off too much skin comes dead last.

The photo on the right is taken from Okinawa Soba’s excellent collection on flickr.
Read the rest of this entry »