世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking recently published, as selected by goo Research’s monitor pool over the 19th and 20th of April 2007, Japan’s most curiously-named stations.

Some of the names are amusing, others are strange, and a few more I just don’t get! Any help would be more than welcome.

Note that the number one choice is Japan’s longest station name. This title used to be held by 「ルイス・C.ティファニー庭園美術館前駅」, “Louis C Tiffany Garden Museum Mae Station”, but the museum closed down and the station was renamed to the slightly shorter 「松江イングリッシュガーデン前駅」, “Matsue English Garden Mae Station”, apparently on the 21st of May 2007. Note that at the time of writing, Wikipedia wrongly reports this as the longest Japanese station name in a link from their Louis C Tiffany page.

To help you locate the places, I’ve made a custom Google Map for all these stations.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the matter of corporate blogs. This can be considered as a follow-up to the survey published yesterday on company-internal blogs and SNS.

Demographics

On the 17th of May 2007 JR Tokai Express Research gathered responses from 330 members of its online monitor group employed in private industry. 76.4% of the sample was male, 10.3% in their twenties, 40.6% in their thirties, 37.6% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties.

My employer has neither a corporate blog nor a president’s blog. We get once a month press release-like messages from the prez, and at one time our division manager tried starting an internal blog, but the plan died horribly. I think people expressing opinions was the main issue that stifled any progress.
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goo Ranking recently published another rather entertaining survey, this time on where people would least like to go on a first date to, with both male and female versions published.

As usual for goo Ranking, there is no demographic information available about the sample size, only that the votes were gathered between the 19th and 20th of April from members of the goo Research monitor group. The top voted location was awarded 100 points, and the others awarded a score representing the relative percentage of votes they got.
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japan.internet.com recently published a summary of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the topic of company internal blogs and Social Networking Services (SNS).

Demographics

330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor group in salaried employment successfully completed a private internet-based survey between the 8th and 10th of May 2007. 69.7% of the group was male, 18.2% in their twenties, 44.8% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

I always find it difficult to comment on these sorts of surveys as I fear I might stray too far into criticism of my employer, so I’ll not bore you with my experiences with groupware activities at my place of work.

There will be a significant difference, I think, between the availability figures in Q1 and the actual usage figures by either the respondent or others at the company, but sadly that is not reported.

For reference, I previously translated goo Research’s more detailed look at company internal communication issues.
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Having previously looked with DIMSDRIVE Ranking at average sleep times, and more recently with goo Ranking on avoiding nodding off at the wheel, this time let’s look at drowsiness with DIMSDRIVE Ranking’s 115th survey – how often one feels drowsy, at what time of the day one feels drowsy, and what one does to counter drowsiness.

I get drowsy about 9pm or so most nights, but I just have to try to endure it until bed time, although looking at the survey it only deals with sleepiness during the day time. It’s quite amazing, however, that at least one colleague at least once per week falls asleep during meetings, or at least closes his eyes and appears to be lightly dozing. When there is mass meetings, mass snoozing is never far behind, although that might be due to the majority of speakers being deathly dull…
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[part 1] [part 2]

Macromill Inc recently published the results of some research it conducted into electronic money, in particular nanaco and WAON.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 10th of April 2007 1,030 members of Macromill Monitor group resident in Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures completed a private online survey. The group was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each of the five age bands: 20.0% in their teens (between 15 and 19), 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

My use of electronic money is very limited. I have a Suica, or to be correct an Icoca card, the Kansai equivalent of Suica, which holds my season ticket and also sometimes cash, although I’ve almost exclusively used it at railway ticket gates, and one time only in a cafe when I realised I hadn’t any money. Just like I was never keen on debit cards in the UK, giving away cash in advance is just not appealing to me.

My concern about the security aspect of electronic cash is not about personal loss or skimming-like attacks, but the fundamentals such as hackers working out how to add cash to a card. From what I know of RFID security it is actually theoretically straightforward to hack out passwords and keys from certain smart cards through side-channel attacks, but I don’t know what counter-measures have been taken by the manufacturers, or what protection there is on mobile-phone applications. Actually, this is the vague area where I work, so I better not speculate out loud in case my boss is listening…
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[part 1] [part 2]

Macromill Inc recently published the results of some research it conducted into electronic money, in particular nanaco and WAON.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 10th of April 2007 1,030 members of Macromill Monitor group resident in Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures completed a private online survey. The group was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each of the five age bands: 20.0% in their teens (between 15 and 19), 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Even though I have quite an interest in electronic money, I’d only vaguely heard of nanaco, and never of WAON, even though I often shop in their supermarkets. Perhaps the initial launch is limited to the Tokyo area, or perhaps my rather run-down supermarket in the suburbs is way down in the priority list!
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infoPLANT recently reported on a survey they conducted into mobile wallpaper. This concerns images for the idle screen on a mobile phone, called 待ち受け画面, machi-uke gamen, in Japanese.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 24th of April 2007 infoPLANT gathered 5,941 respondents by means of a publicly-advertised questionnaire available through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. This self-selecting sample was 36.8% male, 63.2% female. As noted in an earlier survey, these infoPLANT surveys tend to attract a disproporionately high percentage of people on unlimited usage plans, and those on unlimited plans tend to use pay sites more.

I recently downloaded a cute Rilakkuma wallpaper from a promotion through the convenience store chain Lawson, but unfortunately that promotion has finished so I can’t pass on the URL. However, if you’re looking for some San-X wallpaper for your PC, or want to try scaling down the images to fit your mobile’s screen size, here’s their official web page containing a good number of images of Rilakkuma, Tare Panda, Monokuro Boo, and many others, with not just wallpaper, but also screen savers and calendars.
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With summer coming up, let’s take a rather timely look with goo Ranking at Japan’s favourite Haagen Dazs flavours. Over the 19th and 20th of April 2007 an unspecified number of people chose their favourite ice cream flavour from the Haagen Dazs range. 100 points was awarded to the top choice, and others given a score based on the percentage of votes of the number one that they obtained.

My personal favourite is Cookies and Cream, although it is only a once-in-a-blue-moon treat for me. I also love black sesame ice cream, but I can’t say I’ve ever knowingly eaten Haagen Dazs’s version.

If you’d like to learn more about Japanese ice cream habits, I have previously translated a more detailed look at the ice cream market in Japan.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into digital camera storage issues.

Demographics

1,080 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based survey between the 20th and 21st of April 2007. 51.9% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.8% in their twenties, 17.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.6% aged sixty or older.

My current photo store comes to around 10 gigabytes, with most of it backed up to CD. I was suprised by the large number of people using external hard disks, but with prices dropping I suppose it makes for rapid and flexible backup when compared to CDs or DVDs.
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