What the Japanese are learning online

This survey from MMD Labo looked at online lessons. With the pandemic and people spending more time at home, it would have been interesting to see how many people had chosen to start lessons for these reasons, but the results of that question were not offered in this summary of the survey.

I’ve not started any private lessons, although for work I’ve done a good number of free lectures I’ve found through YouTube, mostly on the subjects of GPUs and autonomous vehicles.

I’m surprised to see yoga, fitness and sports as the second-most popular genre; I can understand watching YouTube videos, but two-way lessons seem difficult without physical feedback.
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Electronic commerce, home delivery and unattended delivery

Although the norm in Japan is for goods to be handed over at the doorstep, perhaps this survey from MMD Labo into electronic commerce and home delivery might point to a new norm of unattended delivery.

I’ve never tried unattended delivery, and don’t particularly want to either. I do live in a block of flats that has shared lockers for when people aren’t in, so there’s little worry about missed delivery, and anyway we set delivery times when we can usually assure we are at home.

Have you tried unattended delivery in Japan? How did it go?
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Online live music consumption in Japan

This survey from MMD Labo looked at the safest way to enjoy live music these days, viewing online live music.

I’ve not watched any online live music free or paid, although over the New Year my favourite Japanese band, Southern All Stars, did an online live concert (they normally see in the New Year with an in-person concert) with tickets at 4,500 yen each, and I was sorely tempted…

Here’s a random song of theirs off YouTube; I’d not actually seen or heard this one before:


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COVID-19 and the usage of large electronic commerce sites

This survey from MMD Labo looked at people’s usage of large electronic commerce sites during the pandemic.

Our family’s use of shopping sites hasn’t really changed. I still prefer the old-fashioned way of actually going to a shop, and I’m quite happy to place my trust in facemasks and antibacterial lotions. Also, working at home I think it’s good for one’s general well-being to get out of the house and get some fresh air regularly, and fortunately Japan isn’t populated with too many idiots that refuse to wear masks.
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Teleworking VPN usage in Japan


This survey from HENNGE amongst corporate Information System professionals into corporate telework and VPN usage shows that it wasn’t just my office whose VPN struggled under the traffic at the start of the Stay Home campaign.

For the first month my corporate VPN was very difficult to connect to (although I got informed of a side entrance that skipped the queue) and we were only supposed to connect for a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon, but the capacity has been upped and since then I have had zero problems regarding logging in.

Working from home works very well for me, as I can use the VPN to attach to my office desktop and use my company laptop to develop almost just as efficiently as if I was physically sitting in the office, and of course I am free of all the office background noise and the crowded commute.
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One in four young Japanese men know Steam, one in forty have bought


I’m not sure how well the downloadable game marketplace Steam
is known in the West, but at least thanks to this survey about Steam I know a little more about the Japanese market.

I’ve never used Steam, and in fact I’ve got almost no time for any PC gaming; free Android titles fill my gaming needs! This is more my kind of Steam:

Type C56_160_1
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Young Japanese women and Instagram

The sweets maker Kanro recently released a survey that looked at Instagram and lifestyle, with young women being the focus.

One reason for this survey is to promote a photo competition. Follow either Kanro’s Twitter or Instagram account, take a photo of yourself with a package of Kanro’s Pure Gummi and upload it, tagging it with #ピュレフォト and #キャンペーン実施中 by the end of the year. After that, 1,000 people will be selected (at random, I presume) and will receive 6 bags of limited edition colourful Pure Gummy.

My Instagram account is mostly stuff I find interesting and the occasional food plate, and I’ll like just about anything with kittens in it.

Here’s a selection of fruity gummy:

Gummy Candy
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Amazon happenings that Japanese can relate to

I’m not a big Amazon user, but I can still empathise with many on this list of Amazon happenings.

Last night I saw a news item on the dark side of Amazon and other net shopping; many areas that had already lost local shops to superstores were now losing the remaining shops to Amazon and similar services, so older folks who are either not comfortable with (or even capable of) net shopping or prefer the human touch now had few places to shop, and in particular fresh vegetables were difficult to come by.

I’m sure that I could save about 20 minutes a day by doing net shopping, but I still don’t trust the quality of fresh vegetables that one might get, and I like the physical experience of browsing the salad and side dish corner to see what looks nice or is on discount each day.

As for Amazon Prime Video (or NetFlix, etc), I just don’t have any urge to watch!

Here’s Danbo, Amazon Japan’s mascot character, looking rather sad:

Danbo Was Once Lost but He Has Now Seen The Light
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Two in five thinking of quitting Facebook

How often do full real life Facebook posts irritate you? graph of japanese statisticsThis was an interesting survey from Times Current titled rather dramatically “Being tired of other’s full real life”, a title based on a Japanese expression リア充, ria-juu, being satisfied with one’s real offline life.

One of my online (and offline too) friends is perhaps just a bit too much ria-juu with airline business class lounge photos, domestic holidays, posh dinners, etc, but it rather than annoying me it motivates me to work harder so I too can have a similar life.
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Top Japanese web site annoyances

goo Ranking took a look at what things on web sites annoy people.

Demographics

goo Rankings asked iBRIDGE’s Research Plus to conduct this survey, where between the 10th and 12th of February 2015 500 members, 50:50 male and female, of their monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were given.

Most of the moans seem to be related to adverts; I have various adverts here, so I hope few of these annoyances appear here. If they do annoy you, or if other aspects of this site do, please let me know in this thread.

I’m not sure the best way to illustrate an advertisement. Maybe I’ll skip a picture today to give my own advertising more space?
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