Buzz

As American Idol's success has shown, people love to vote -- and to see how others have voted. But why limit electronic polling to TV land? Why can't any audience anywhere be polled, whenever, with the results projected for all to see? Now, a service called Poll Everywhere makes it pretty simple to offer this...

Poll your audience in real time by downloading a slide from the Poll Everywhere site and inserting it into your PowerPoint file. Audience members can respond to questions by text or Twitter from their phones. Results appear in a customizable graph or running list of tweets.

I've seen another teacher use Poll Everywhere software with the students to check on their understanding during a lecture. The teacher posed a math problem, the students texted their replies to the Poll Everywhere site, and a pie chart showing the distribution of answers was instantly projected at the front of the class, giving the teacher a chance to clear up any misconceptions before moving on.

Poll Everywhere, a Y Combinator company that launched last Fall, is a service that allows presenters to sidestep these obstacles [proprietary devices] by taking polls with mobile phones. Instead of using a proprietary device, users simply send a SMS message to a specified number. This data can then be displayed on a dynamic PowerPoint slide, allowing users to watch the results change on the fly.

Need to know how many folks coming to your big bash prefer beer, wine, or soda? [...] You can also send a link to your polling page by email, Twitter, or whatever service you'd like, but the convenience of having to text less than 10 characters back likely boosts your return rate...

Using audience response system technology provided by $100K mobile semi-finalist team Poll Everywhere, the crowd morphed into a brainy version of American Idol, texting their votes in immediate response...

Poll Everywhere really shines when you’re presenting to an audience, are on the move, or just want to poll your Twitter followers. The Poll Everywhere widget can be downloaded as a PowerPoint Slide and will live-update as each user votes. If you want to find out more about your audience, just ask them to whip out their cell phones and text to 99503 their desired response.

Poll Everywhere's technology allows users to conduct polls via mobile text messaging and then watch the results in real time via programs like Microsoft Corp.'s PowerPoint.

The live interactive text messaging polling service had people captivated and engaged as the audience eagerly watched the percentages on the bar chart fluctuate as votes poured in from phones to determine the crowd favorite and who would win $10,000.

I have written before about trying to find a way for basic cell phones to replace the expensive classroom performance systems (CPS) ... Now, I have found another web2.0 that works in the same fashion as a CPS tool.