With both the 2007 Japan Professional Baseball and the 2007 US Major League Baseball seasons underway, and with wall-to-wall Japanese television coverage of the exploits of the local players in the Major League, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, performed a survey that looked at reformation of the professional baseball draft system in Japan. This article contains just the highlights of the fuller survey that they conducted.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 26th of March, members of goo Research’s online monitor group were randomly selected and 1,089 of them successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire.
As well as the US careers of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka, the other big baseball-related topics are plans to reduce the length of time before becoming eligible for Free Agency from the current nine years, and to reform the draft system to prevent, or at least reduce, problems occuring from cases such as amateurs receiving dodgy handouts from the Seibu Lions. Read the rest of this entry »
16,032 members of their online community successfully completed the survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifites.
I drink low-fat (or is it low sugar? or both?) Yakult almost every morning, delivered door-to-door once a week. Whether or not it does me any good is debatable, it seems… On the other hand, they have the Tokuho mark on their bottles, which implies that it has passed some sort of testing of its claims in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
With One Seg digital terrestrial television reception becoming a standard feature on most higher-end mobile phones, infoPLANT decided to look at One Seg viewing habits and intentions. Over one week in the middle of March they gathered 6,871 replies to a publicly available survey accessed through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system.
Demographics
Of the 6,871 respondents, 62.2% were female, 3.2% in their teens, 31.1% in their twenties, 43.5% in their thirties, 18.6% in their forties, and 3.5% aged fifty or older.
I’ve only ever watched a One Seg mobile through a glass case in a mobile phone shop, but the picture quality is quite remarkable. I’ve also noticed in the last month or so a few people watching television on the train to work, perhaps one person a week or so, usually catching up on the morning news it seems. The three main things putting me off One Seg are the handset prices, size, as the TV receiver makes it a bit chunkier, and battery concerns, as recharging the phone every night or so would get rather tiresome.
I was quite surprised by the results here, as infoPLANT tends to attract those with newer phones, yet less than 4% had actually watched One Seg on their own devices. Read the rest of this entry »
japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey conducted by goo Research into video sharing sites. 1,088 members of goo Research’s monitor group completed a private internet-based survey.
Demographics
Of the 1,088 users, 52.2% were male, 24.7% were in their twenties, 22.4% in their thirties, 21.7% in their forties, 20.9% in their fifties, and 10.3% in their sixties.
In just under a year since a similar survey was conducted (May 2006), the number of people who have visited a video sharing site has multiplied by a factor of over 2.4. However, the raw percentage of uploaders has decreased drastically, but looking at the raw numbers, there has really been little change.
Forgive me a little off-topicness, but since many other Japan bloggers like to entertain their viewers with video clips, this survey seems a good excuse for me to present a short film from YouTube (undoubtedly illegally shared!) of what I consider to be young Japanese women at their finest:
The Yomiuri Shimbun, in conjunction with goo Research, recently published the results of a survey conducted between the 9th and 11th of March on the subject of global warming.
Demographics
1,107 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50% of the sample was male, 22% in their twenties, 18% in their thirties, 21% in their forties, 17% in their fifties, and 21% aged sixty or older.
Note that the winter of 2006/2007 was very mild, with no snow falling in Tokyo during the official winter period, the first time this had occurred since records began in 1877, thus perhaps focusing minds on the topic. In addition, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had recently opened in Japanese cinemas.
Although this survey reports broad support for charging for plastic bags at checkouts, according to some statistics I saw, these bags represent just 2% of all household rubbish, in constrast to other plastic food wrappers making up almost 30% of the average garbage bag. The defense I saw of the policy was that the fees may engender awareness of the overuse of wrappings thus encourage people to use less, but it is the manufacturers who do the overwrapping, so there is little that the consumer can do to influence this, I fear. Read the rest of this entry »
According to the survey results James presented, End-of-Year and Mid-Year gifts are the hardest to comprehend, followed by restraint and modesty, then sitting seiza, a sort-of kneeling position.
Well, not literally (although I’m sure some are) but garbage collection and recycling is the most common thing looked up, according to a survey reported on japan.internet.com, conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of local government web sites.
Demographics
On the 3rd of April 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample was female, 23.3% in their twenties, 35.5% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 7.3% in their sixties.
One “other” from Q1SQ2 that I had need of was to look up what to do about a bees’ nest, as a new family of wasps decided to move in along with us a couple of years back. Most, if not all, councils will send someone round for free if it is not too big a nest, apparently, and not located in a difficult-to-reach location Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 18th of January and the 4th of February the Cabinet Office Japan conducted a survey into what people thought about society.
Demographics
10,000 people were selected randomly from all Japanese citizens aged 20 or older for face-to-face interviews. 5,585 people were available and agreed to take part. 54.5% of the sample was female, 7.9% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, 20.8% in their sixties, 15.4% in their seventies, and 4.8% aged 80 or older. 74.6% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% never married.
Another knee-jerk from many in the foreign community was when Japan’s Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa talked about it being only natural that couples want at least two children. Some bloggers did go against the trend, I’m glad to say, and this survey shows that the majority of married people want, in fact, three children, and even the younger generation much prefer two to one or zero.
At least the topic of children brings out the brighter side of the Japanese. Education costs are a major concern, as even most public schools require the parents to pay for the basics like text books.. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 18th of January and the 4th of February the Cabinet Office Japan conducted a survey into what people thought about society.
Demographics
10,000 people were selected randomly from all Japanese citizens aged 20 or older for face-to-face interviews. 5,585 people were available and agreed to take part. 54.5% of the sample was female, 7.9% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, 20.8% in their sixties, 15.4% in their seventies, and 4.8% aged 80 or older. 74.6% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% never married.
People do not seem very enamoured by the government in Q7! As in part 1, in Q11 and Q12 there seems to be significantly more pessimists than optimists. Interestingly, however, is that in Q8 “cohesiveness of the people”, perhaps another way of phrasing “homogeneous”, comes very low in the list of praiseworthy aspects of Japan, despite what Bummei Ibuki might think. Personally speaking, I have to agree with him on this if you look at the data from a statistical viewpoint. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 18th of January and the 4th of February the Cabinet Office Japan conducted a survey into what people thought about society.
Demographics
10,000 people were selected randomly from all Japanese citizens aged 20 or older for face-to-face interviews. 5,585 people were available and agreed to take part. 54.5% of the sample was female, 7.9% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, 20.8% in their sixties, 15.4% in their seventies, and 4.8% aged 80 or older. 74.6% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% never married.
This first part is rather depressing, as can be seen in Q4 and Q5 where people see the darker side of society much more clearly, although this can be offset by the personal society-oriented opinions expressed in the earlier questions. I’m not sure exactly what Q6A and Q6B are saying. Successful people, on the whole, get there due to effort, but perhaps “successful” here refers to people who inherit rather than work for their wealth, such as many politicians or ex-politicians who land cushy jobs on retirement due to the practise of amakudari. Read the rest of this entry »
With both the 2007 Japan Professional Baseball and the 2007 US Major League Baseball seasons underway, and with wall-to-wall Japanese television coverage of the exploits of the local players in the Major League, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, performed a survey that looked at reformation of the professional baseball draft system in Japan. This article contains just the highlights of the fuller survey that they conducted.
Over the first five days of March this year MyVoice looked at the 
With One Seg digital terrestrial television reception becoming a standard feature on most higher-end mobile phones, infoPLANT decided to look at 
The Yomiuri Shimbun, in conjunction with goo Research, recently published the results of a survey conducted between the 9th and 11th of March on the subject of 
[
[
[
Subscribe to feed