FSB economics/industry research suggestions requested

The University, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to drop about $5000
in "research funds" on me.  I _could_ of course use it to buy 50 or
so SD cards for my Zaurus, but I'd rather make some students a little
richer and gather some useful information.

Unfortunately, the fund evaporates at the end of February.  It's not
practical to do a survey in that time frame (I can't use it for travel
expenses, anyway).  So ...

Any suggestions that involve gathering data from publically available
sources, such as magazines, newpapers, or the Web, especially pointers
to studies done on the North American or European industries that
could be replicated for Japan, would get high priority.

I can probably get reasonable English-speaking or Chinese-speaking
research assistance, too, so don't limit yourself to Japanese sources.
It's just that most of my current crew are monolingual in Japanese,
and there's the time limit problem, so Japan gets priority.

While for obvious reasons I can't do pure market research for a
particular product, please don't let your self-interest keep you from
making a suggestion.  In particular, if there's a legal way to figure
out market penetration for your product type for various segments of
the web, I'd be really interested in hearing about the technology.
We're putting `lynx -head' to use already, simple is good.[1]

Please reply to me <[email protected]>.  If I do turn up some
interesting data or results, I will provide an URL and (if
appropriate) a brief summary to the list.

Steve



Footnotes: 
[1]  Yes, it would be cheaper to write a 'bot, but cheap is bad.
Anyway, I want them to see it with their own eyes.  Educational.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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