infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted over three days at the start of September this year into the mobile music marketplace. This survey was conducted amongst members of their internet mointor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. The demographics targeted youth, with 1,000 people chosen to take part. They were split 500 male, 500 female. 250 of each sex were aged between 15 and 29, 250 between 30 and 39. 150 of each age group used only portable music players (not just digital players, but CD or MD, etc players too), 50 used only mobile phone music players, and 50 used both.
This is really a fascinating set of figures. Q1 indicating that people with both types of devices spend as much on pre-recorded media as the other two groups put together, and over double the combined totals on downloads.
Q2 shows the iPod’s image is unmatched in almost every respect, which puts a damper on people who talk about US companies being unable to compete against the local makers.
Q5 shows that in the digital audio world, unsurprisingly hard disk-based players are the most desired, but then devices with built-in memory are twice as popular as memory card-based devices! The reason for this is unclear, although I wonder if this is to do with people wanting iPod Shuffles and Nanos? Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: I have been informed by some of my readers that bukkake may in fact have a second meaning in addition to being a style of topping for noodles. I am currently researching Google to try to confirm this matter; I may be some time.
Last month MyVoice published the results of a survey they conducted amongst their internet monitor group to find out their views on udon. 12,182 people successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire conducted over five days at the start of October. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.
Udon, thick wheat-based noodles, is one of the two main home-grown noodles in Japan, with soba, a thin noodle made from buckwheat, being the second. Personally, I dislike udon, and even more dislike eating out as my Western manners-sensitive ears find the loud slurping noises from fellow diners extremely off-putting and irritating.
DIMSDRIVE recently published the results of a survey into probably the biggest event in the school year (and a minor event in the company calendar), Sports Day. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October they interviewed 6,566 people from their internet monitor group. 60.1% were female, 1.1% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.5% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 2.9% aged sixty or older. Since this survey was mainly about their children’s sports day, the additional children-related data was 11.7% had infant-aged children, 13.6% had children in nursery or kindergarten, 9.7% in first or second year of primary (elementary) school (i.e. aged 6 or 7), 9.9% in third or fourth year primary education, 9.8% in fifth or sixth year, 12.9% in middle school, and 14.4% in high school or older. 46.5% had no children at all.
The Sports Day isalsoabigdayforEnglishlanguageteachers, of course, but recently, as can be seen in Q6SQ5, since so many people are carrying video cameras, applause is limited since people have their hands full, so there’s a much poorer atmosphere surrounding the events. I’ve been party to interesting technical discussions surrounding this and other issues that crop up regarding recording Sports Day, but the details have to remain secret for now… Read the rest of this entry »
DIMSDRIVE recently published the results of a survey into probably the biggest event in the school year (and a minor event in the company calendar), Sports Day. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October they interviewed 6,566 people from their internet monitor group. 60.1% were female, 1.1% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.5% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 8.5% in their fifties, and 2.9% aged sixty or older. Since this survey was mainly about their children’s sports day, the additional children-related data was 11.7% had infant-aged children, 13.6% had children in nursery or kindergarten, 9.7% in first or second year of primary (elementary) school (i.e. aged 6 or 7), 9.9% in third or fourth year primary education, 9.8% in fifth or sixth year, 12.9% in middle school, and 14.4% in high school or older. 46.5% had no children at all.
There is in fact a national holiday for sports event, 体育の日, taiiku no hi, Health Sports Day, usually the 10th of October (although this year it was on the 9th, for some reason), celebrating the day the 1964 Tokyo Olympics opened. I’ve once taken part in our company sports evening, which consisted of many childish games, beer, and cheap boxed lunches, all performed with the PA blaring out tunes like Colonel Bogie. Never again! Read the rest of this entry »
A little while back goo Ranking published the results of a poll into the top 30 new internet words. Many of these neologisms are unlikely to ever find their way into a dictionary, other than perhaps one of the Wiki family, of course. As usual for goo Ranking, the top vote gets 100 points, and all the rest get a value representing the percentage of votes relative to the number one choice.
As you might suspect, many of these words were coined on 2 Channel.
Central Research Services Inc recently reported on a survey into media consumption in 2005. The survey itself was conducted back in October 2005, and although detailed demographics are not available, the sample was randomly selected from residents up and down the country aged between 15 and 69, and conducted by means of face-to-face interviews. The response rate was 57.4%, giving a raw sample size of 3,443 people.
I don’t think this survey teaches us much that intuition suggests to be true, but it’s always interesting to get these hunches backed up by raw data. However, although almost three-quarters read a paper every day, how much they actually read versus just headline skimming is another question that hasn’t been asked here.
Q3 is a rather weird question – perhaps it’s to see if people start with the news or the sports. The tabloids have sports on the back page, but the broadsheets usually have the television listings, then the sports from the second-last page, so I don’t know how that affected the answers. Read the rest of this entry »
Lighting seems very high to me, and you’ll perhaps notice that washing machines is not noted: in Japan, most washers use cold, not hot water, so they need no heating element for water.
Continuing on from cheese, we now move to that most wonderful of Japanese sweeties, Pocky. Apparently the 11th of November is Pocky and Pretz (a savoury version of Pocky) Day, presumably as 11 11 looks like four Pocky sticks. I can guess that Pretz is so-called as it is perhaps reminiscent of a pretzel, but why Pocky?
As usual, no demographics, just the relative votes from a survey conducted towards the end of October. I like most of the Pocky advertisements, so I was rather pleased to find someone doing their own YouTube version of one of the current commercials.
In my never-ending quest to bring you the finest in studies of Japanese consumer habits, I present the latest goo Ranking survey on cheese for your edification. As usual for these rankings, the scoring is expressed as percentages; the finest fermented curd scores 100 points, and all other cheesy comestibles score according to the ratio of their votes to the number one.
Some trivia: apparently cheese (when first introduced to Japan anyway) smelt as bad to the Japanese as natto does to us Westerners. Most cheese sold in Japan is made in Japan, and whilst I can understand it in cheddar’s case, Hokkaido mozzarella still seems rather strange to me. The chance of any cheese purchased in Japanese tasting anything like Western-produced cheese is rather remote, bar the plastic processed cheese slices that are equally revolting the world over!
Over a week at the end of August and the start of September, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at movie theatre attendance. 5,180 member of their online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey. 43.1% were male, 1.2% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, 26.9% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.7% aged sixty or over.
In this half of the survey we see that not surprisingly people find the movies in Japan just a bit too expensive. I can understand that, as even when buying the advance tickets, 1,300 yen is a bit much to risk on a movie you may not know too well, and all but the biggest blockbusters are worth the full 1,800 yen price.
I’m not sure about the attending the movies by yourself. Is this frowned upon in Japan? Some sort of black mark on your character? Read the rest of this entry »
infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted over three days at the start of September this year into the mobile music marketplace. This survey was conducted amongst members of their internet mointor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. The demographics targeted youth, with 1,000 people chosen to take part. They were split 500 male, 500 female. 250 of each sex were aged between 15 and 29, 250 between 30 and 39. 150 of each age group used only portable music players (not just digital players, but CD or MD, etc players too), 50 used only mobile phone music players, and 50 used both.
UPDATE: I have been informed by some of my readers that bukkake may in fact have a second meaning in addition to being a style of topping for noodles. I am currently researching Google to try to confirm this matter; I may be some time.
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