I think the buzzword in the English speaking world is Micro Four-Thirds, but in Japan they use mirrorless to describe the new generation of SLRs that have no optical viewfinder. To find out more about them, iShare took a look at the merits and demerits of mirrorless SLRs.
Demographics
Between the 13th and 17th of August 2010 1,114 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was prescreened to select those people who had used an SLR (either digital or optical) for more than three years and were familiar with the specifications for mirrorless SLRs. All the sample were over thirty years old, and 82.9% were male.
I’d like to get a mirrorless SLR, but as my wife doesn’t even trust me with our point-and-shoot, I’m afraid I wouldn’t get much use from it. Furthermore, as they don’t have at least 12 megapixels (or if they do, they don’t make a fuss about it) she won’t be interested. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an interesting ranking survey/mathematical trickery that I came across, produced by Japan Brand Strategy Inc, looking at Japanese web site value.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 25th of June 2010 18,600 people completed a public (I believe) internet-based survey, collecting between 1,200 and 1,500 people per web site that offered the survey. Exactly 50% were male, exactly 25% between 18 and 29 years old, 25% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 25% between 50 and 69 years old.
To evaluate each site, various factors were taken into consideration, such as how often people visited, what they did on the site (eg user registration, contacting the site), why they accessed, their evaluation of the contents, appearance, ease of use, usefulness of information, whether they would visit again, if they made purchases or researched purchases, if they made repeat site visits, whether they would purchase again, and other aspects. Japan Brand Strategy Inc then massaged the results to place numerical yen values on the number of visitors and the type of actions visitors took, and how much visitors used the site information to influence purchasing decisions.
A recent raking survey by goo Ranking looked at one of Japan’s favourite children’s characters, Gachapin and Mukku, Gachapin being the one who looks like Paul a green monster and Mukku the one who looks like John a red one.
Demographics
Over the 21st and 22nd of July 2010 1,159 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% of the sample were female, 12.4% in their teens, 21.1% in their twenties, 28.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 6.4% 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.
Here’s the song mentioned in number 16, where they sing about eating children.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of autopsies in the developed world, with a mere one in ten deaths resulting in one, so to find out more about people’s opinions this survey by the Cabinet Office Japan took a look at the prevention of overlooking suspicious deaths.
Demographics
Between the 15th and 25th of July 2010 3,000 members of the public over the age of twenty selected at random from residency registers were approached for face-to-face interviews. Of the 3,000, 1,913 or 63.8% were successfully interviewed. However, no demographic information was given, although as with all Cabinet Office Japan surveys, they tend to attract much older people than the usual internet-based questionnaires.
I think it’s fair enough to assume that the police are relatively happy with the current state of affairs – writing things off as suicides (if you’re going to push someone off a building, take their shoes off first and line them up neatly afterwards) or accidental deaths keeps the crime rate and the paperwork down, but having said that, I feel that even if they did do more autopsies the Japan murder rate would still be one of the lowest in the world.
Note that as described in the text for Q2, the word that translates to “autopsy” means just an external examination. A further word in Q4 also translates to “autopsy”, but is further defined as the disection kind of forensic autopsy, the kind that most English speakers will associate with the word “autopsy”. Read the rest of this entry »
A recent survey by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at IT-related technical terms.
Demographics
Between the 30th of July and the 3rd of August 2010 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.1 aged sixty or older.
At work I often hear technical terms being bandied around that I think people either don’t understand, have misunderstood, or even worse, have taken on a specific meaning throughout the company not really related to the original definition. My two pet hates are “cloud” for “hetrogeneous network” and “black box” for “immutable interfaces”. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a quick filler survey from iShare, looking at wind instruments.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 27th of July 2010 474 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.2% of the sample were male, 33.1% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 36.5% in their forties.
I always thought the clarinet was a cool instrument for women, but for me, there was no real wind instrument I wanted to learn, although the shape of a French horn was and still is alluring!
Not surprisingly, the sax comes out tops in attractiveness for women, but men prefer the flute. I wonder if that figure includes women who are good with the shakuhachi (Japanese flute)? I’ll leave you to Google that one. Read the rest of this entry »
A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at chemical substances in the immediate environment found that, as is the case in English, “chemical substances” is a scary word, despite of course everything being made out of chemical substances, and there’s dangerous natural chemical substances and perfectly safe man-made ones as well as vice versa.
Demographics
Between the 17th and 27th of June 2010 3,000 members of the general public aged twenty or older selected at random from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,942 peope, or 64.7%, completed the interviews; the non-interviewed included 383 refusals, 367 not in at the time, 118 had moved, 74 people were away from the home for a long period of time, 48 addresses were unclear, and 68 people were not available for other reasons. 51.4% of the sample were female, 8.8% in their twenties, 14.3% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, 24.1% in their sixties, and 16.5% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 14.4% only completed elementary or middle school, 44.0% high school, 41.1% had attended or were currently attending university, and 0.5% didn’t answer.
Note that in Q8, since this survey is conducted face-to-face, and older people are more heavily-represented since there is more chance of finding them at home (although sometimes not quite able to answer questions…), the internet appears relatively low in the list. Read the rest of this entry »
A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at chemical substances in the immediate environment found that, as is the case in English, “chemical substances” is a scary word, despite of course everything being made out of chemical substances, and there’s dangerous natural chemical substances and perfectly safe man-made ones as well as vice versa.
Demographics
Between the 17th and 27th of June 2010 3,000 members of the general public aged twenty or older selected at random from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,942 peope, or 64.7%, completed the interviews; the non-interviewed included 383 refusals, 367 not in at the time, 118 had moved, 74 people were away from the home for a long period of time, 48 addresses were unclear, and 68 people were not available for other reasons. 51.4% of the sample were female, 8.8% in their twenties, 14.3% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, 24.1% in their sixties, and 16.5% aged seventy or older. Furthermore, 14.4% only completed elementary or middle school, 44.0% high school, 41.1% had attended or were currently attending university, and 0.5% didn’t answer.
Looking at Q5, I’d have loved to have seen people asked about how much they worried about dihydrogen monoxide, an ingredient in almost all functional energy drinks that many Japanese use to keep them going while working long hours yet announcing its presence in ingredient lists is not regulated by the Japanese government! Furthermore, many Japanese mix it with the legal high hydroxyethane after hours, leading to further cravings for dihydrogen monoxide the next day. BAN THIS ACCURSED CHEMICAL NOW! Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 9th and 12th of July 2010 315 members of the goo Research online monitor group who used a corporate Twitter account as part of their job completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Sex and age demographics were not reported as they were not particularly significant; instead company size and industry was reported. 32.1% worked in companies of under 10 employees, 27.0% between 10 and 99 employees, 21.0% between 100 and 999 employees, 19.0% with 1,000 or more employees, and 1.0% just didn’t know. 22.9% were in manufacturing, 10.2% in distribution or small shops, 5.4% in finance, 55.9% in service industries, and 5.7% other.
Note that although the sample is small, all the respondents were corporate Tweeters, so the accuracy of the data should be high.
My employer just released a new corporate social media hub site, combining Twitter and YouTube feeds. There might also be a blog, but I’ll be surprised if it is anything other than just a press release archive. I don’t think there’s an active mixi account, and there’s certainly no Facebook account for the Japanese side. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 21st and 26th of July 2010 476 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 29.8% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, and 40.1% in their forties.
In Q2, people were asked the reasons for their answer; those who wanted to make calls said for example it was because they could call in their own free time and wanted to keep in touch. On the other hand, those who wanted to receive calls said it was because they didn’t know if the other person was free, they were happy to get called, and they were just not very good at making calls.
I hate making calls myself even in English, and I also hate getting calls in the office – I often just ignore my phone and hope someone else picks it up. If I’m the only person in the office, I just ignore the phone completely. Read the rest of this entry »
I think the buzzword in the English speaking world is Micro Four-Thirds, but in Japan they use mirrorless to describe the new generation of SLRs that have no optical viewfinder. To find out more about them, iShare took a look at the merits and demerits of mirrorless SLRs.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of autopsies in the developed world, with a mere one in ten deaths resulting in one, so to find out more about people’s opinions this survey by the Cabinet Office Japan took a look at the 
A recent survey by goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at 
A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at 
A recent very detailed survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking at 
A recent very detailed survey from goo Research, in conjuction with social media consultants 
I don’t really know what to make of this recent survey from iShare into 
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