世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into movie file sharing sites. Over two days at the end of March 300 members of their internet research monitor group completed a private survey.

Demographics

As usual for Cross Marketing, the group was split 50:50 male and female, and 20% in each of the age groups from teens to fifties. In addition, all the respondents lived in Tokyo and the surrounding area.

As well as the well-known YouTube, another sharing site mentioned was ニコニコ動画, nico-nico douga, Nico Video, a new-to-me movie sharing site, it seems. In addition, the article mentions a word-of-mouth campaign on behalf of Sound Portal that was conducted through the release of their promotional advertisement to YouTube.
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After having looked at rice consumption in January, as a sort-of follow-up, over the first five days of March MyVoice asked their online monitor community about rice cookers.

Demographics

15,947 members osuccessfully completed the online questionnaire. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

IH is Induction Heating, which is… well, this site describes the process in detail.

Note that I don’t know if just boiling a pan of rice on the cooker counts as a rice cooker or not (although I suspect not), or if the traditional rice pan (I can’t remember the Japanese name of the iron pan with the wooden lid) does either (I suspect it might). As a pedagogical note, the Japanese for rice cooker is 炊飯器, suihanki, which “translates” kanji by kanji as boiling rice device
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into studying English conversation. The column they published, however, concentrates on the computer-related aspects of learning.

Demographics

1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 24.1% were in their twenties, 22.7% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, and 10.6% in their sixties. 51.8% of the sample was male.

Last month I presented another survey concerning Second Life (hey, that headline’s wrong – a majority don’t want to try!) that showed that almost half the sample wanted to try out Second Life; add the results here to the previous survey and we see that over three in five potential Second Lifers may be on the lookout for English lessons!

The article also mentions cafetalk.jp offering Second Life English lessons, so if you fancy getting involved as a tutor through Skype on your PC, feel free to have a look at what they offer, as there does seem to be a significant number of Japanese looking for on-line English.
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Over one week at the start of March, infoPLANT conducted a survey by means of a public questionnaire available throughNTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system on the subject of online shopping habits. Note that since this is a self-selecting survey, attracting perhaps heavy mobile phone users, there might be some bias towards higher levels of shopping than in the average phone-owning population.

Demographics

6,398 people, 66.1% of them female, successfully completed the survey. 3.1% were in their teens, 33.0% in their twenties, 43.1% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, and 3.2% aged fifty or older.

I personally have never bought anything through a mobile phone web site as I restrict all my purchasing activity to a full-size computer, and I’m really surprised to see clothes doing so well, but in part that might be due to people choosing clothes through a paper catalogue then completing the order by mobile phone.
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into computers in the classrooms of elementary and middle schools.

Demographics

On the 16th of March 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s monitor panel working in the education field completed a private internet-based survey. 83.0% were male, 7.9% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, 40.0% in their forties, 19.4% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties. 19, or 5.8%, worked in elementary schools, 6.4% (21 people) in middle schools, 11.8% (39 people) in high schools or vocational schools, 193 people (58.5%) in universities, 1.8% (or just 6 people) in technical colleges, 2.4% (8 people) in cram schools, and 18 people, or 5.5%, had other education-related rolls. 25 people actually had other jobs, and one was currently unemployed. The questions below were then asked only to the 40 elementary and middle school teachers.

It’s interesting that over half the sample consisted of university lecturers and the like. Perhaps this suggests something about the relatively light workload that allows that group to spend time completing online surveys?

For the questions presented below, the sample size is probably far too small to be any use, but I present the data regardless.
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In keeping with the cherry blossom season, Bill over at Rising Sun of Nihon spread out the blue ground sheet underneath the sakura, cracked open two six-packs of refreshing blog content, and partied well into the night, belting out that familiar refrain of Uniquely Japanese.

Big thanks to Bill for doing the hosting, and I am in awe of his mad networking skillz in getting so many to take part this month. Next month’s host and topic will be reported in due time. Future volunteers are most welcome to get in touch!

Over five days at the start of March MyVoice surveyed their online community on the subject of staying at domestic high-class hotels chains. The survey uses the term “city hotels”, but what they refer to are three star or more posh hotel chains located usually in city centres or around airports targetted mainly at the higher-end business traveller, but also doing packages for leisure breaks for ordinary travellers, featuring facilities such as restaurants, swimming poll, shopping, fitness centre, etc.

Demographics

15,526 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 fifties.

Personally, I’ve stayed at about 7 of the chains mentioned, all of them for leisure, and never paid more than 15,000 yen per person including breakfast. It would have been interesting to see the survey split between leisure and business travellers, though. The ones I can recommend in the Kansai region are the Hyatt Regency Osaka Bayside for the overall quality (make sure you apply for a member’s card before you stay to get a free drink), the Hilton Umeda for the room decor (modern wa), Westin Awaji for a nice break in the countryside, and the Kansai International Airport Nikko for a high-quality buffet dinner and breakfast before you fly. I’m waiting for a cheap offer (under 25,000 yen per room is the target) for the Teikoku Hotel and the Ritz-Carlton. The only one I wouldn’t recommend would be the Zennikku/ANA Hotel in Kanazawa – nice free coffee and cake package, but small, dark rooms desperately in need of renovation, which admittedly they may have done since I stayed there about four years ago.

Oh, and do other people’s Japanese other halves clean out everything that’s not nailed down (well, the freebies at least) from every hotel you stay at? Anyone want to bid on three bars of Hilton soap on eBay?
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into the use of on-line fortune-telling sites and services.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% were male, 24.2% in their twenties, 22.5% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, and 10.5% in their sixties.

The demographics are worth bearing in mind when reading the results; one has the impression that women are more interested and more believing of horoscopes and the like, so perhaps this survey suggests a majority of women may read their fortune online regularly. I would love to see the full data.

I did look at this topic last year, so it may be useful to check that data out too. Sadly, in a way, I believe astrology is all bunk. Sadly, as I do get a noticable amount of traffic searching for “japanese astrology”, so if I had no scruples I could monetize this traffic quite easily!

One thing I find interesting is that with the fuss over television programs making stuff up, there seems to be little or no collateral damage on these frauds, including the chief witch, Kazuko Hosoki, who still gets prime-time coverage, although I suppose people do enjoy her as much for her sharp tongue as for her divination. Still, at least she doesn’t seem quite as irresponsible as Sylvia Browne.


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japan.internet.com reported that on the 15th of March 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor group completed a survey on the topic of Social Networking Services (SNS).

Demographics

All of the 330 people were employed by public or private enterprises. 75.5% of the sample was male, 17.6% in their twenties, 48.5% in their thirties, 27.9% in their forties, 5.5% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

As I bemoan every time I do a survey on SNS, I’m too busy to even start. Well, not quite true; I’m not prepared to commit the time I believe is necessary in order to participate productively in an SNS.
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Following up on the earlier survey on the Baby Boom generation, this time MacroMill interviewed 515 members of their online monitor group who are part of the Baby Boom generation, that is born between 1947 and 1949. All 515 were male, currently working for public or private employers.

Q4 is quite illuminating, in that almost two-thirds are worried about their financial security. While I suppose it is only natural that people hold concerns about losing all their earning powers, I still feel it seems excessively high. Why people worry would have been an interesting follow-on questions; is it a lack of pension provision, health care costs, NEET children to support, or even just an unwillingness to economise.

I think Q5 would have been more informative if they had also collected the data as a multiple of their final salary, not just a raw figure, as it is difficult to relate to the numbers without this information. Also, I’m not sure where one’s pension comes into the figures – I think even the earnings-related portion is separate from any lump sum.
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