One of the first things one notices, indeed, one cannot avoid getting one’s senses assaulted by them regularly in Japan, is the ubiquitous pachinko parlour. Usage or otherwise of them was the subject matter of this recent survey by MyVoice.
Demographics
Over the first five days of November 2008 15,182 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 6% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.
The only good thing about pachinko are the adverts; one doing the rounds right now is for Star Wars pachinko – I’d love to see Danny Choo doing his Stormtrooper act playing one of these! Another enjoyable one is this:
Whenever I get around to upgrading my desktop display, I think it will be a wide-screen monitor that I go for; sadly, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into home computers did not discuss people’s purchase intentions.
Demographics
Between the 5th and 10th of November 2008 1,034 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
It’s interesting to note in Q1 that notebooks outnumber desktops at home, and surprising to see one in four notebooks are wide-screen, even allowing for dual-head users with an extra monitor plugged in. Read the rest of this entry »
At the world marches on, fixtures from our childhood become outdated and start to disappear, leaving just an empty feeling behind. This survey from goo Ranking looked at what disappearing items make the Japanese feel lonely
Demographics
Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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.
I can think of a lot of intangible items I miss, but as for the tangible, I do miss line printers with fan-fold paper! As a developer, running over a set of A4 pages with too much word-wrapping is just not as satisfying nor as productive as a heap of fan-fold. From the list, 18, quiz programs with members of the public is the one I can most identify with. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m sure in school and university we all got our fill of scientific laws and principles that we have long-since forgotten bar the names. To see how the Japanese fare on this, goo Ranking performed this survey on remembered names but forgotton details of scientific principles.
Demographics
Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% 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.
I’d never heard of the Mpemba effect before, and the first one I could definitely explain is Schrödinger’s Cat. I got Einstein’s theories confused – E=mc2 is special relativity; general relativity is gravity and time dilation. I only managed three others I could recall! How did you get on? Read the rest of this entry »
It’s perhaps a meme (sorry for using that word; I dislike it, but it fits here) that has overstayed its welcome on the internet, with places like FAIL Blog documenting failure in pictures, or The Register with its slightly too swearie-word-filled Fail and You column, but it was the best way to headline this survey from goo Ranking on sensing that moment of defeat, to translate just a bit too literally.
Demographics
Between the 21th and 24th of October 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were female, 5.0% in their teens, 13.2% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 13.1% in their fifties, and 8.8% 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.
My FAIL! moment that I often have is that once every two weeks is paper and metal rubbish day, the next or sometimes previous day is plastic and glass, so it’s going out to throw out stuff on the second day and realising that I’ve got the days back to front. Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t looked at Social Networking Services (SNS) for a while, so I was pleased to find this one to report, published on japan.internet.com and conducted by another newcomer to me, Point On Research, on mobile SNS.
Demographics
On the 16th of November 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a survey. It does not say whether or not the survey was conducted via mobile phone or computer-based internet, as a mobile phone base would imply a higher percentage of people on all-you-can-eat data plans, so these sort of people tend to be more active online. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.
Note that although most people use a cut-down browser on their mobile phones, all the major PC-sites have tailored their interfaces to fit these restrictions. Having said that, most of the top sites in Q1 are mobile-only free game-centred SNSes. Read the rest of this entry »
After the Second World War an undecided territorial issue between the USSR/Russia and Japan was the fate of the four most southern of the Northern Territories, as they are known in Japan, or the Kuril Isles to the Russians. This survey from the Cabinet Office Japan (so obviously there is an inherent bias towards the official government position) looked at what the Japanese think about the Northern Territories issue.
Demographics
3,000 members of the public aged 20 or over were randomly selected for face-to-face interviews between the 9th and 19th of October 2008. 1,826 people, or 60.9%, agreed to take part. Sex and age demographics were not given, but since Cabinet Office surveys are conducted face-to-face they tend to catch an older demographic.
As background on the issue, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a pamphlet describing the Japanese position, Gregory Clarke wrote an article on this for the Japan Times a few years ago, and Russia Today looked at the new Japanese curriculum that will start teaching that the isles are Japanese. Read the rest of this entry »
Censorship is always a hot topic in discussions regarding the internet, with recent flare-ups surrounding such matters as the government trying to remove web sites promoting suicide by sulfide gas (although Bloomberg reported how to do it), so I was pleased to see the issue being tackled by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com in this survey on web censorship.
Research results
Between the 12th and 14th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% 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 am certainly not for government-level censorship of either domestic or foreign web content, but I do support properly-executed legal orders for domestic sites to remove content, and of course self-regulation by service providers. The web should be neither a free-for-all or a free-for-none, but instead a healthy balance must be reached. In Q2, I think they must mean within Japan, as The Great Firewall of China is a fact.
For those curious about the Japanese language used in the original survey, I translated 検閲, ken-etsu, as censorship, and 規制, kisei, as regulation. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the big stories doing the rounds in Japan is the number of people getting busted for possession of maru, and the general moral panic over the matter. To try to quantify the size of the problem, the university student-targeted Social Networking Service LinNo today published the results of a survey of their users, as reported by ITMedia.
Demographics
Between the 11th and 18th of November 2008 465 university students who were members of the LinNo SNS completed an internet-based questionnaire. No further demographic information was provided.
The questionnaire seemed just a little tame to me, although perhaps a fuller set of questions was asked. Do students believe it should be legalised? Why was “join in” an option if a friend was puffing away, but not if it was a boy or girlfriend? What about usage of other drugs? What about the “just say no” policy? Do they believe it to be a gateway drug? Read the rest of this entry »
A new-to-me research company called realworld realresearch, which from a quick look at their site seems to be more in the business of being a shopping and stuff portal than a research agency, recently performed a survey into local authorities and IT, as reported by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
On the 13th of October 2008 1,199 people selected by some undescribed means completed a presumably online questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were female, 15.0% were in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 18.0% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, and 30.0% in their sixties. Given the round percentages, don’t ask why they couldn’t find one more person to round the sample up to 1,200! It’s also a curiously top-heavy sample, with the majority of the sample being over fifty.
I’m surprised that (as far as I know) no local authority has tried moving more services online, as one still needs to get a paper print-out of one’s residency certificate for such things as mortgages and other large loans, or at least why there cannot be vending machines that will spew out the documents 24-7 instead of requiring people to attend during working hours.
One of the first things one notices, indeed, one cannot avoid getting one’s senses assaulted by them regularly in Japan, is the ubiquitous pachinko parlour. Usage or otherwise of them was the subject matter of this recent survey by MyVoice.
Whenever I get around to upgrading my desktop display, I think it will be a wide-screen monitor that I go for; sadly, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
I haven’t looked at Social Networking Services (SNS) for a while, so I was pleased to find this one to report, published on japan.internet.com and conducted by another newcomer to me, 
After the Second World War an undecided territorial issue between the USSR/Russia and Japan was the fate of the four most southern of the Northern Territories, as they are known in Japan, or the Kuril Isles to the Russians. This survey from the Cabinet Office Japan (so obviously there is an inherent bias towards the official government position) looked at what the Japanese think about the 
Censorship is always a hot topic in discussions regarding the internet, with recent flare-ups surrounding such matters as the government trying to remove web sites promoting suicide by sulfide gas (although 
One of the big stories doing the rounds in Japan is the number of people getting 
A new-to-me research company called 
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