世論 What Japan Thinks

iShare recently asked their survey panel about what food smells get their juices flowing.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 12th of January 2010 588 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.6% of the sample were male, 32.1% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, and 35.0% in their forties.

I love depachika on the whole, although I stay away from the meat counter. My least favourite food smell is buta-man, Chinese pork steamed bun, which is sold at a couple of stations on the way home, and anyone bringing it into my carriage really turns my stomach.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently conducted their third regular survey into consumer games machines, and the report on japan.internet.com had some interesting data regarding piracy.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of January 2010 1,056 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-base questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 17.7% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in the forties, and 28.0% aged fifty or older.

Previously I’ve mentioned that I felt surveys covering P2P piracy had under-reported the piracy issue, so I’m very surprised to see so large a self-reported figure here for console piracy. I’m not really too sure of the best way to interpret the difference.

It’s interesting to compare the results here with those from last November.
Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t say I don’t bring you rather strange surveys, as here is iShare’s look at sewing buttons, an activity that sems to be taught in most Japanese schools, to boys as well as girls.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of January 2010 509 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.9% of the sample were male, 33.2% in their twenties, 34.0% in their thirties, and 32.8% in their forties.

I never learnt such matters in school myself, although we did have home economics, but that focused on cooking skills on the whole. If I lose a button these days I just ask wifey nicely to fix it, and sometimes she in fact actually does do it for me.
Read the rest of this entry »

Japanese make lousy travellers, on the whole, I feel, and this survey from goo Ranking into worried before foreign travel backs up my opinions.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of January 2010 1,071 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were female, 19.9% in their teens, 29.5% in their twenties, 30.5% in their thirties, and 20.1% in their forties. 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 wife is a hopeless worrier about foreign travel, especially in contrast to me, as I go with just a vague idea of where might be nice to visit, yet she tries to draw up a detailed itinery. My main worry is whether or not I’ll get a chance to sit in an open cafe on a sunny afternoon having a hot coffee or a cool beer!

Number 13 is due to the fact that a lot of tours feature souvenir shops rather highly. I remember seeing a report about a cheap Hong Kong tour where you had to pay extra if you didn’t want to go to the Duty Free shopping centre.

Photo from slworking2 on flickr – I think his main worry is forgetting his battery charger…
Read the rest of this entry »

Despite mobile phones reaching pretty much saturation point, according to recent survey into fixed line phones by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com less than one in five see fixed lines disappearing in the future.

Demographics

On the 25th of January 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, 33.7% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.0% in their sixties.

One reason why fixed line phones are not going away, compared to what I imagine trends are in the USA, is that mobile phone deals in Japan contain very, very few free minutes. SoftBank are the most generous, offering basically free calls to all SoftBank phones, and the other two main carriers have free family and friend calls to certain numbers, but otherwise mobile calls are pretty expensive compared to fixed line phones, and calls to mobile numbers also carry a premium.
Read the rest of this entry »

Recently DIMSDRIVE Research took a look at shredders and personal information.

Demographics

Between the 22nd of July and the 6th of August 2009 9,590 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 1.1% in their teens, 11.9% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 16.5% in their fifties, and 6.8% aged sixty or older.

In Q1, just in case you are wondering what a personal information-hiding stamp is, well, I can sell you one of these. It’s a stamp that overprints data with a tight pattern in order to obscure the original text which I thought was just a novelty, but 6.4% of the sample use one.

I myself have an electric shredder that we bought mail-order for about 10,000 yen a few years ago. It’s a quite large home office size, but it works well, although it does clog up if you put plastic wrappers through…
Read the rest of this entry »

With the Winter Olympics due to open on the 12th (or 13th Japan time), here’s a timely survey from iShare into the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of January 2010 497 members of the CLUb BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.8% of the sample were male, 33.2% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 36.4% in their forties.

There’s been two interesting bits of news about Japanese athletes: first, Miho Takagi, the 15 year old speed skater with the unfortunately-designed outfit, has been mentioned on the news as much regarding her chance to be able to use English as her actual skating, then a lead story on one channel today was Kazuhiro Kokubo, the halfpipe snowboarder, getting banned from Japan’s welcoming ceremony for being sloppy-dressed at Narita airport, having – shock-horror – a loose tie and his shirt tails hanging out.

The Olympic committee have set a target of 10 medals for Vancouver, but 85% think Japan will get four or less…
Read the rest of this entry »

Media Interactive recently conducted a survey amongst 2ch (2 channel) users to find out more about their usage patterns. The highlights of the survey were reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of January 2010 exactly 1,000 people who had used 2ch were selected by some unspecified methodology. 53.4% of the sample were male, 0.8% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 36.7% in their forties, 11.6% in their fifties, and 3.9% in their sixties.

The sample demographics seems like a very typical demographic for online survey companies, so it’s difficult to say if the demographic reflects 2ch users or reflects Media Interactive’s monitor panel.

The stand-out figure for me is how few use 2ch on the move; the notebook figure perhaps reflects the lack of public WiFi and the lack of penetration of wireless dongles, and the mobile phone figure is perhaps due to the fact that most mobile browsers are pretty terrible, and to use a “full browser” (mobile Opera and the like) requires a separate more expensive plan.

I wonder if there’s a business opportunity for someone to write a 2ch reader for Android or the iPhone?
Read the rest of this entry »

Much like Coke or Pepsi or Kanto versus Kansai, glossy versus matte LCDs, the subject of a recent iShare survey, is an eternal battle with entrenched favourites.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 18th of January 2010 500 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.8% of the sample were male, 31.2% in their twenties, 32.0% in their thirties, and 36.8% in their forties.

I’m firmly in the matte camp, although I’ve never actually used a glossy… When I bought my monitor they had both a glossy and matte version on offer, and whilst the colours from glossy were very vivid, I’d heard a lot about issues with reflections, and anyway the matte was cheaper…

Oh, and just to mention the iPad for the first time on this blog (although no doubt they’ll be a million and one surveys over the next couple of months), I hear a lot of people imagining how professionals in the field will use one, but it has a glossy screen which along with the LCD makes it a no-go – and that’s also ignoring that it’s not ruggedised, water resistant or even terribly sturdy-looking.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a sort-of follow-up on a recent survey into internet performance, this time we look with Marsh Inc and japan.internet.com at computer dissatisfaction.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 17th of January 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 2.3% in their teens, 17.7% 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.

I’m mostly satisfied with my setup at home – it’s no speed demon, but it wasn’t bought as one, although it could do with a little bit of extra memory as it gets a bit slow when memory fills up, and the mouse is rather wonky.

Interestingly, in this survey everyone had a home computer, although usually there’s always one or two who do their surveys from the office or an internet cafe – I presume they pre-screened the sample.
Read the rest of this entry »