I did get as far as going to look round a sports club once, but the staff were not very friendly at all and the price was a bit high, so I gave up. I should try again somewhere else… To see how the Japanese view this topic, DIMSDRIVE Research recently performed a survey into sports clubs.
Demographics
Between the 20th and 28th of February 2008 6,016 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.7% of the sample was female, 1.5% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 34.5% in their thirties, 25.3% in theire forties, 17.5% in their fifties, and 1.2% aged sixty or older.
I have been just the once to a fitness club in Japan in a hotel we were staying in, as we had a package that included free use of the facilities. The walking machine was fun, and the instructor helped us out with stretching exercises and the like, but then he introduced me to the stair machine which completely killed me in under 10 seconds. After that it was off to the hot tub and swimming pool, which is much more my idea of exercise!
In Q4 there is one type of training mentioned, 加圧, kaatsu, which is quite the popular fad in Japan amongst people on television. Basically you constrict bloodflow to your arms or legs and do a normal workout, and scientific studies in Japan have shown that for certain conditions and certain people it is better than normal exercise. To me it looks pretty dangerous, quite frankly! There’s very little English language information on this, and the scientific papers I see are split between those seeing an effect and those not. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s another quickie survey today (sorry, a bit busy these days to concentrate on long translations!), again reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh into the matter of e-learning.
Demographics
Between the 26th and 31st of March 2008 300 members of the Marsh internet monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The sexes were split 50:50, and by age 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 13.3% in their fifties, and 6.7% aged sixty or older.
I once tried an internet site that offered Kanji Kentei training, but I didn’t really enjoy it much, and anyway now there’s Nintendo DS software for kanji practice for round about the same price as three months on the web site, why bother? Talking of the DS, looking at the results below it seems that e-learning here means internet-delivered contents, not software. Read the rest of this entry »
By Ken Y-N (
April 2, 2008 at 23:26)
· Filed under Opinion
This is the title of a recent report produced by Rubicon Consulting, which I picked up via Michael Mace’s blog. I love statistics and stories on the iPhone, and although this is a study of the USA market, I will project from the US findings to look at if similar trends can be observed in Japan, and will Apple’s device be a success or not over here based on the reported results. You may have heard the recent news that the production of a 3G iPhone has started, so the Japan release is surely getting near. Let us look at the key statistics in the full report and see what they mean. All statements about the Japanese market are based on surveys previously translated on this blog.
Demographics
460 randomly-selected iPhone users from all over the US completed an internet-based questionnaire. The sex breakdown is not listed, but by age 0% were under 18, 5% were between 18 to 21, 15% between 22 to 25, 30% between 26 to 30, 26% between 31 to 40, 13% between 41 to 50, 6% between 51 to 60, 4% between 61 and 70, and 1% over 70 years old.
User satisfaction
Overall over 40% were strongly satisfied with most of the features, and almost 80% satisfied to some degree. However, under 30% were strongly satisfied with data speed; in Japan with ubiquitous 3G, the need for speed will surely be even stronger. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a quickie report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into customising one’s desktop at home.
Demographics
On the 31st of March 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sector successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 78.5% of the sample was male, 12.1% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 36.9% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.
I don’t bother with gadgets myself. I did once try out Opera-based ones, but they just got in the way, as does Google’s toolbar stuff, so I keep that safely out of the way docked at the bottom of the screen. Read the rest of this entry »
With the Nova bunny finally succumbing to myxomatosis last year, there has been a good number of people with nowhere to learn English. So, this recent survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com regarding studying English conversation looks at if people might be interested in virtually learning the language.
Demographics
On the 29th of March 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 77.9% of the sample was male, 12.4% in their twenties, 41.2% in their thirties, 34.5% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.
English conversation differs from actual English language study, as it is based on the theory that if you sit a Japanese person beside an English speaker, there will be a miraculous transfer of the contents of the victim’s wallet language abilities. There are of course a few good schools and teachers, but the mass market companies are not much more than social clubs for both the students and teachers. Read the rest of this entry »
The battle for new customers amongst the mobile carriers is rather intense, with the three main players running lots of prime-time television advertising. To see what effect they are having on the average Japanese consumer, NEPRO Japan recently looked at mobile phone television advertisements.
Research results
From 10 am on the 7th to 3 am on the 8th of March 2008 4,498 users of the mobile phone menuing systems from the three main providers, namely iMode, Yahoo! Keitai and EZweb self-selected themselves to complete an open survey. 56% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 35% in their twenties, 42% in their thirties, and 20% aged forty or older.
Sadly, if the result in Q4 had been the other way round I could have got the much more enticing title of “Yukie Nakama gets licked by dog”, but it was not to be. Anyway, here is the lovely Yukie Nakama, and some other not-so-lovely people:
Although I can’t stand dogs in real life, I really do like the SoftBank commercials! Yukie Namaka’s au “Anybody!” appearances are rather entertaining too, although the latest ones are a bit naff. I can’t remember recent DoCoMo adverts, although a few months ago they had celebrity-infested ones. Just to round out, eMobile has monkeys, with this one featuring the SoftBank dog’s twin brother being amazed at the cheap deals. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the 21st and 22nd of February 2008 1,052 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were female, 6.4% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 26.6% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 9.1% aged sixty or over. 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’t say I suffer from any of the old git activities listed in Q1, at least I hope not, except for the moaning about work, but at least my moaning is justified! For Q2, the one thing that does confuse me is the fashion for trouser crotches around the knees in men. To preserve their modesty, even school trousers seem to come in high waistband size, so it just looks exceedingly silly and I wish they’d all stop it! Next comes sloppy speech, all the “maji yabee!” and “ore saa”. Uggh! Read the rest of this entry »
I run anti-virus software at home, and at work of course, but there always is the worry that it’s chewing up system resources – at work a full disk scan starts at noon on Wednesdays and takes around two hours to process my desktop, rendering most other tasks pretty much unusable – but better safe than sorry, which is, I suppose, how TrendMicro and the rest make their money. To find out what the average Japanese person uses at home, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into anti-virus software.
Demographics
On the 19th of March 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.7% of the sample was male, 10.6% in their twenties, 38.4% in their thirties, 35.3% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.
Between the 27th of February and 3rd of March 2008 7,345 members of the DIMSDRIVE Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire.
Before I go any further, I better make it clear that this is merely a translation of a survey, and I have no direct investments in the companies listed, I am not a professional, please do not make investment decisions based on this article, and other disclaimers…
I’m surprised, but then also not suprised, that JAL rates so highly, as they seem to be on dodgy financial ground, but they are the national carrier, so perhaps symbolism and patriotism outweighs financial due diligence.
It’s also interesting to note that there are few out-and-out technology companies and certainly no internet-focused companies on the list; Nintendo is perhaps the closest, but they sell hardware as much as software, Sony is mostly home electronics, and SoftBank is as much about infrastructure and handset resale as communication. Seven Bank, a new online and offline bank run by the same group that owns the 7-11 convenience store chain is perhaps the most revolutionary company on the list. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 21st and 23rd of January 2008 1,017 members of the goo Research online monitor panel aged between 20 and 34, single and living alone, and regular full-time employees completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was female, 28.0% was aged between 20 and 24, 39.4% between 25 and 29, and 32.6% between 30 and 34.
I’m very suprised by the results of Q6 as shown in the pie chart above. Barely one in twenty are on speaking terms with the neighbours, which is much lower than I might have expected. I’d love to hear the reasons why.
Just to explain the anti thumb-turn covers, these try to prevent one kind of housebreaking attack where someone sticks a wire through your letterbox and turns the lock from the inside. Read the rest of this entry »
I did get as far as going to look round a sports club once, but the staff were not very friendly at all and the price was a bit high, so I gave up. I should try again somewhere else… To see how the Japanese view this topic, DIMSDRIVE Research recently performed a survey into sports clubs.
Here’s another quickie survey today (sorry, a bit busy these days to concentrate on long translations!), again reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh into the matter of 
Here’s a quickie report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into 
With the 
I run anti-virus software at home, and at work of course, but there always is the worry that it’s chewing up system resources – at work a full disk scan starts at noon on Wednesdays and takes around two hours to process my desktop, rendering most other tasks pretty much unusable – but better safe than sorry, which is, I suppose, how TrendMicro and the rest make their money. To find out what the average Japanese person uses at home, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into 
A recent survey from goo Research, conducted in conjuction with the All About Japan web site, looked at 
Subscribe to feed