世論 What Japan Thinks

This fun survey from goo Ranking looked at what women thought were the characteristics of a guy they wouldn’t want to ever date again. If the male’s thoughts are published, I’ll be sure to report them too!

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
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iShare recently took a look at stress and skin diseases.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 17th of October 2011 3,272 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 72.8% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 8.9% in their twenties, 24.3% in their thirties, 33.2% in their forties, 25.7% in their fifties, and 6.5% in their sixties.

One reason for this survey was that November 12th was “Skin Day”; one way of reading 1112 is いいひふ, ii hifu, or good skin in English.

In the list of diseases in Q2 you might notice the absence of psoriasis, according to my local quack and his big book of diseases the most common reason for people in the west to visit the dermatologist. In white people the rate is about 2 in 100, but in oriental people it is closer to 2 in 10,000, thus it is well below the radar in Japan.

I used to get rough skin from stress, but I don’t these days. However, my ears go red some evenings for no discernable reason, so I tend to assume it might just be stress.
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With the digital switch-over finished (with a subsequent massive drop in demand for televisions, but that’s another story), this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into terrestrial digital television had a look at how people were finding it.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 16th of November 2011 1,089 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male. 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 21.6% aged fifty or older.

I’m rather satisfied with the whole digital broadcast business. My favourite part is that pressing the data button on most channels gives a three-hourly breakdown of the weather for the next 24 hours in my town, no further fiddling required.
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goo Ranking recently took a look at what smartphone-related terminology people are too embarrassed to display their ignorance by asking about.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

This ranking implies that the higher the score, the less likely people are to know the term. I’d never heard about drawr (!NSFW!) before, but I don’t know if it really is that much of a topic of conversation. UPDATE: Oops, my mistake – it was drawer, not drawr; that term’s made me embarrassed too!

I’m familiar with all the terms except for “home app”; Google suggests that it’s some kind of replacement for the default Android shell.

Ranking result

Q: What smartphone technical terms are you too embarrassed to display your ignorance by asking about them? (Sample size=1,092)

Rank		Score
1	Drawer	100
2	Flick input	97.0
3	Tethering	83.2
4	AR	81.0
5	Galakei	78.4
6	OAuth authentication	76.7
7	Pinch in, pinch out	74.1
8=	Dock	71.1
8=	UI	71.1
10	Widget	69.8
11	Dual core	63.4
12	Push notification	62.5
13	SIM free	56.9
14	Tap	55.2
15	3G	51.3
16	Bluetooth	48.7
17=	Wi-fi	47.0
17=	BlackBerry	47.0
19	Multitask	46.1
20	Home app	39.7
21	SMS, MMS	38.8
22	Live wallpaper	37.9
23	Multitouch	35.8
24	Lock screen	31.5
25	Android	31.0

A recent survey from goo Research into communication with school in times of disasters was conducted in conjunction with http://wdsd.net/, another company in the same NTT Resonant group as goo Research that provides mailing list services to schools for communicating with parents and guardians in times of disaster and other occasions.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 30th of October 2011 350 parents or guardians of middle school or high school children who lived in the Eastern or Northern areas of Japan (one of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Yamanashi, Nagano, Niigata, Aomori, Yamagata, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, or Fukushima Prefectures) completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.0% of the sample were male, 8.0% in their thirties, 64.0% in their forties, 27.7% in their fifties, and 0.3% in their sixties.

Note that the areas surveyed were those that were affected the most by the March 11th earthquake, which is a focus of many of the questions below.
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A number of clinics these days offer services for making reservations online, a service I have availed myself of once or twice.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 17th of November 2011 1,081 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

With ordinary clinics, the way reservations work is rather than reserving a time, one reserves a place in the queue, and the system will email you back once you get close to the head of the queue, so one can minimise the sitting around in the waiting room time. I’m surprised my regular skin clinic hasn’t adopted it, as they have a manual system which on weekends means that phoning in at about 9 am means one might get seen by 6 pm on a good day.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into online shopping showed that credit card was by far the most popular payment method.

Demographics

Between the 31st of October and the 4th of November 2011 1,086 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private mobile phone (including smartphone)-based questionnaire. 59.9% of the sample were female, 3.8% in their teens, 29.7% in their twenties, 34.5% in their thirties, 24.5% in their forties, and 7.6% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never shopped online from my mobile for all the three reasons listed in Q1SQ2, and other reasons would include that the services I buy from are all overseas, and they don’t work very well, if at all, on Japanese mobiles.
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With the iPod having beaten just about all the opposition (Sony are still fighting strongly), then the iPhone dominating, although it may be slipping right now, and the iPad too doing very well, it seems opportune to ask why people like Apple products. This ranking survey was conducted by goo Ranking.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% aged sixty or older. 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 own no Apple products, but they definitely are idiot-proof (#3) and the unified infrastructure (#5) such that all your music, photos and apps can seamlessy travel between all your devices is really a very strong selling point, and a great way to lock-in customers. I also suspect that if people had really been honest, #20 would be much higher!

And talking of cute logos:

Christmas is coming, and goo Research were first to get in on the act with their look at Christmas.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of October 2011, 503 members of the goo Research monitor group residing within Tokyo city or the three surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Saitama or Kanagawa completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.9% of the sample were female, 33.8% in their twenties, 33.2% in their thirties, and 33.0% in their forties.

I hate all the Christmas present nonsense myself. I send my parents our company’s calendar every year, which is always a nice and easy purchase to make, then I agonise over what to get the wife, and it usually ends up as some cuddly toys.

Note that Christmas in Japan usually means Christmas Eve, and indeed that is how it should be read in the questions below.
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goo Reseach’s latest survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, was not on genetically-modified rodents, but instead on the computer kind of mouse.

Demographics

Over the 24th and 25th of October 2011 1,089 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I use both wired and wireless mice. I quite like the wireless one, but it’s just a little heavy, and the performance gets a bit dodgy as the batteries get a little lower.
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