世論 What Japan Thinks

This recent look by Media Interactive (iResearch), reported on by japan.internet.com, into translation web sites found, surprisingly to me, that Google Translate was nowhere to be seen.

Demographics

Over the 7th and 8th of June 2010 1,000 internet users who had used translation web sites completed a survey. 57.1% of the sample were male, 1.1% were in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 29.6% in their thirties, 28.5% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 7.6% in their sixties.

Just to test out the sites, in Q1 I’ve fed in the first sentence the article, “ポータルサイトを中心に各社が翻訳サービスを提供しているが、ユーザーの利用状況はどうだろうか。”, which I would manually translate as “Focused around portal sites, various companies offer translation services, but how do users use them?” For the Other category, I’ll use Google Translate, since I mentioned its omission above. Also note that Yahoo! use Babelfish on their English site, which gives this translation “Focusing on the portal sight each company offers translation service, but will utilization circumstance of the user how probably be?”, which is probably the worst of the lot, especially as it doesn’t seem to be aware of the common phrase “portal site”!
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One of the topics of conversation in Japan these days is the beard ban enacted by a local council. To find out what people think of this, iShare conducted a survey into beards.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of June 2010 423 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.8% of the sample were male,・0.7% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, and 37.4% in their forties.

The reason for enacting the ban was because some taxpayer customer got upset at seeing a half-shaven face one morning; rather than a sensible ruling on not coming in to work without shaving, the council decided all facial hair must go. There was quite an entertaining article in the Japan Times looking at this issue.

I think a beard can look good, but chin beards or half-hearted moustache are not, although I’d never dream of complaining about one. However stubble that looks like one’s just got out of bed has to go!
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Anyone bringing out an iPhone or, heaven forfend, an iPad at a gokon dating party would get nothing but ridicule (or a punch in the iGob, if I was feeling generous) from me, but regardless, this survey from goo Ranking and probably sponsored by Apple looked at the top twenty dating party applications for the iPhone

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of May 2010 perhaps around 1,100 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Unfortunately, the link to the demographics is broken, so I cannot give any more information that that right now. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Quite frankly, all these games sound rather naff to me, but then again I’m not in the target audience! Have any of my readers tried out any of the below at a real party?
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goo Ranking takes us to a gokon dating party again, this time looking at what sort of person gets points against them on first meeting at a dating party, for both women looking at men and men looking at women.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of May 2010 perhaps around 1,100 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Unfortunately, the link to the demographics is broken, so I cannot give any more information that that right now. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Given that in Japan non-smoking restaurants are the exception rather than the rule, I’m surprised that smoking doesn’t rank way up near the top of the list, in particular smoking without asking if it is OK with everyone else.

For me, not laughing at gags would be a plus point, as the Japanese sense of humour as seen in visual comedy does absolutely nothing for me, on the whole.
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A recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into recording television programs found the use of video tapes outnumbering Blu-ray players.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 23rd of May 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fities, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I watch more TV in real-time than recorded – weekdays is usually real-time, weekends is catching up with what I’ve missed.
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An interesting survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into Apple’s iPad found that not just awareness but also desire was high for Apple’s new couch surfing device.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of June 2010 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

I have been at a conference in Hungary over the last week, and one of the attendees had brought along an iPad as his main device, although as far as I could gather from the demonstration he gave a few of us it was just for surfing and light emailing during the duller presentations. I didn’t see any others in evidence during my travels, even though I half-expected to see one or two on the flight from Japan. I’ll not be trading up from my netbook, as a real keyboard is needed for these translations.
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I’ve never considered an outbreak of spots cute, and I can’t really imagine anyone else finding plouks attractive, but this survey from iShare into acne uncovered a large number of spot fans.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of May 2010 1,081 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.9% of the sample were female, 30.8% in their twenties, and 69.2% in their thirties, and all were unmarried.

If you’ve been in Japan for any period of time recently you surely cannot fail to have seen an ad or ten for Proactiv (no link – they’ll have to pay me for one!), all exceedingly annoying! I also saw last week that the Bashful Prince, Ryo Ishikawa, has recently broken out, so given that he is this year the king of advertisements, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets lined up to endorse Proactiv too.

Oh, and I just checked that in the US a thirty day kit is $19.95, in Japan a sixty day kit is 9,300 yen, making it about 2.5 times more expensive in Japan.

I never had acne, although I now have psorisis and have to wear short trousers on doctor’s orders!
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iShare recently did one of their trademark curious surveys, this time looking at issues surrounding funerals.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of May 2010 432 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.6% of the sample were male, 32.9% in their twenties, 32.4% in their thirties, and 34.7% in their forties.

Funerals in Japan are a horrendous rip-off, on the whole, especially as many feel they have to call in priests to officiate, who often charge in the millions of yen for their services. I’ve seen people defend this practice by saying that as people are expected to bring a cash gift for the family they can cover expenses; this may be true, but then again one has to give presents back to everyone who gifts, and of course there is ongoing expenses of grave maintenance and annual services for the deceased, which again can run into hundreds of thousands.

And I really ought to link to my brother’s post from three years ago.
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I haven’t looked at Bluetooth for a while, but still, according to this survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into Bluetooth, awareness is quite low; despite Japanese mobiles being advanced in many other features, Bluetooth is still a rarity.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 31st of May 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

My netbook comes with a Bluetooth LED and had a Bluetooth driver installed, but it doesn’t actually have any Bluetooth hardware…
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I don’t know if it’s just the sort of people I work with, but many people in the office seem to have half their Windows desktop strewn with icons. However, this recent survey from iShare into organising desktop icons found that such behaviour was the exception rather than the rule.

Demographics

Between the 30th of April and the 10th of May 2010 537 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.3% of the sample were male, 31.3% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, and 36.5% in their forties.

I try to keep my icons down to under two columns on the left and just one or two on the right.

Another interesting related subject I should look out for is the use of tray icons – again, most of my colleagues have well over 15 on their machine, including default informational icons like the two touchpad-related ones our standard notebook computers come shipped with. I turn off all the ones I can as they are just a distraction, on the whole.
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