SurveyGizmo Blog
Colorado entrepreneur Bill Flagg makes strategic investment in Web 2.0 survey company SurveyGizmo
May 5 2008 by Robin SeidnerMay 5, 2008, Boulder, Colorado – SurveyGizmo, an online survey, data collection and analysis tool today announced a strategic investment in the company by Bill Flagg, president and former co-owner of RegOnline, the online event registration company. Proceeds from the investment will be used by SurveyGizmo to expand staffing to meet the demands of a […]
Customer innovations: Educators use online surveys for student tests and quizzes
May 2 2008 by Robin SeidnerSure, we created this great online survey software, but we certainly didn’t have any idea of all the ways that our customers would use it. Customer suggestions about SurveyGizmo have been the seed of great new functions and features we’ve created. The same holds true for you — you can get great ideas for […]
Online help improvements on SurveyGizmo
May 1 2008 by Robin SeidnerFor the amount of help-related content we have on SurveyGizmo.com, we’ve been hearing from you now that it can be difficult to find the particular help you need to answer questions about how to make your online surveys smarter. So, as a first step to helping you find that content better, we’ve changed the internal […]
Reasons to switch to SurveyGizmo - we asked our customers
April 30 2008 by Robin SeidnerWe sometimes get asked by new customers to help them “sell” SurveyGizmo into their company. Meaning, they are sold on us, but, others on staff are using some other online survey tool — one that makes this person crazy because it just can’t provide what we can — and they need what SurveyGizmo’s got. They […]
Orange County Register Builds Adobe Flex App on Survey API
April 4 2008 by Derek ScruggsOne thing we haven’t talked about as much as we probably should is our Survey API. They SurveyGizmo API Version 1.0 allows you to query our infrastructure and retrieve responses as well as perform a few operations on the survey itself. This is how our WordPress survey plugin works. The survey API Version 2.0, available […]
New Tech Meetup Demo
April 1 2008 by Derek ScruggsTonight I did a demo of SurveyGizmo at the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup. I was fortunate to get a few laugh lines, but the credit really goes to Scott for putting together some nice screen shots and helping me work out exactly what to present.
A typical client demo or webinar can go on for […]
Press Release: Beaches Habitat and SurveyGizmo Team Up to Pre-Qualify Homeowners
March 31 2008 by Derek ScruggsHow can a housing assistance nonprofit qualify and serve more clients without wasting the time and raising false hopes of those who don’t qualify?
The answer is clear to Beaches Habitat, explains Deborah Testa, website coordinator. We have many applications in which we can use SurveyGizmo’s user-friendly website tools to create our own surveys and […]
SalesForce integration documentation
March 26 2008 by Derek ScruggsFYI, this is just a quick note to let you know we’ve added a new section about SalesForce integration to our tutorials.
We Made the Times!
March 25 2008 by Derek ScruggsWell, the GTD (Getting Things Done) Times, that is. Below is the video interview of Scott and I taken just after our Core Conversation at South by South West about GTD.
If you are not familiar with GTD we highly recommend you take a look into it (GTD Times is a good place to get […]
SurveyGizmo’s New Digs & Open House
March 16 2008 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo has grown up and left for a house of its own.
Have a look at SurveyGizmo’s new digs! We’ve been growing like crazy and it was time for some more square footage. When we found this stand alone office (a converted craftsman-style house) we knew it was perfect for us. We’ve have 4 times the […]
TECH Cocktail Boulder
March 13 2008 by Derek ScruggsRight before heading to Austin, we were fortunate enough to do a demo at TECH Cocktail Boulder. Here’s a nice writeup of the event, and below is some video. Our piece starts at about 2:49. I had a heck of a cold that night and was about to lose my voice.
SxSW: Returning with Renewed Vigor!
March 11 2008 by Christian VanekScott, Derek and I went down to Austin this last week to attend the interactive portion of SxSW. For us, it’s a bit of an anniversary and a time to reflect on what we have done over the last year — as well one heck of a shindig.
This year was no exception. The highlights […]
Email Invitations 2.0
February 13 2008 by Christian VanekWe are happy to announce the successful launch of SurveyGizmo’s New Email Invitation & Reminder Tool!
In 2007 we saw a huge interest in our old email invitation tool. Many marketers, researchers, educators and agencies all rely on email invitations as their primary technique for driving survey responses.
SXSW Blogroll
February 7 2008 by Derek Scruggs Like last year and the year before that, I’m offering up the unofficial SXSW blogroll.
If you have a blog and want in on the fun, sign up for it here (scroll down to where it says “Join The SXSW Blogroll”).
Displaying the SXSW blogroll on your site
In the meantime, you can add the blogroll […]
ExactTarget Documentation
February 6 2008 by Derek ScruggsLately we’ve been getting a lot of interest in our ExactTarget module, which is basically just an ExactTarget-specific implementation of our API.
So much interest, in fact, that we thought perhaps we should, you know, document how it works. So, without further ado, here’s our ExactTarget Integration Tutorial.
New! Online Survey Software Training by SurveyGizmo
January 29 2008 by Scott McDaniel Evaluating SurveyGizmo?
Want to develop your survey skills?
Improve your ROI?
Try our free webinars.
After a lot of customer requests we are bringing out SurveyGizmo user training webinars and demos. Whether you are evaluating a purchase of SurveyGizmo and want to see what all the fuss is about, or […]
SurveyGizmo listed in Idealware Survey Software Guide/Blog
January 16 2008 by Christian VanekFirst let me tell you, Google Alerts are a *wonderful* thing. Today for example Google sent me a link to a short blog article/guide that compares four survey tools for not-for-profit users. The guide is quite brief and concise — well worth a look.
The blog post was on Idealware who, in their own […]
Press release: SurveyGizmo poised for extensive growth in 2008
January 14 2008 by cheriExpanded client base plus 3rd party platform integration fuel growth
Boulder, Colorado; Cambridge, Massachusetts – SurveyGizmo, an online survey and data collection company, today announced their 2007 results, showing year-over-year customer growth of more than 500%. “We’re really pleased at how quickly SurveyGizmo has been embraced by the online survey market,” said Scott McDaniel, CEO of […]
An Independent Review
December 19 2007 by Christian VanekToday, we stumbled upon a great review of SurveyGizmo on a blog about marketing research technology. Mark Kupferman goes into great detail about us (actually, it might be even better than the guide one our own website!) starting with this statement:
“SurveyGizmo is among the most easy to use, best priced, feature packed internet survey […]
Five Guiding Principles of Good Survey Design
November 26 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertI’m back with some accepted best practices that I promised from my article Surveys for Fun or Profit? You may have already seen the “Top Ten Survey Best Practices” list that Christian Vanek and I delivered at a free SurveyGizmo Webinar at the end of September. If not, I encourage you to check it out. […]
Google + SurveyGizmo, Part 2: Integration
November 13 2007 by Christian VanekTwo weeks ago we wrote a post describing how to pass information into SurveyGizmo from Google Adwords. Very nifty! *This week* we are going to pass information from SurveyGizmo into Google Analytics. Even niftier, huh?
Why would we want to do this? Well, Google Analytics is a very powerful (and free) web analytics […]
Google + SurveyGizmo, Part 1: Adwords
November 8 2007 by Christian VanekIn the past two months we have received a huge number of questions concerning Google and SurveyGizmo integration. We’ve gotten so many, in fact, that we decided to write a three-part article that shows everyone how to do just that.
This week: Part 1 - Tracking Keywords and Ad Type from Adwords
Next week: Part 2 - […]
Top Ten Best Survey Practices Webinar - Slides, Recording and Q&A
October 9 2007 by Scott McDanielThanks to everyone who attended last week’s webinar “Top Ten Survey Best Practices.” Here is the follow-up info we promised.
Slides in PowerPoint format:
Top Ten Survey Best Practices.ppt
Webinar Recording:
Streaming Flash Player
Windows Media - 37 meg - right-click to Save as…
AVI - 83 meg - right-click to Save as…
Selected Q&A
What is a good way […]
Featured in MarketingSherpa Article
October 2 2007 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo co-founder Christian Vanek is featured this week in a nice article at MarketingSherpa - Special Report: How to Conduct Email Surveys - Tips to Lift Response & Write Subject Lines.
Vanek says ROI “should not be measured based on the number of responses you collect, but on the effect that the knowledge you gained […]
Next Webinar: Top-Ten Survey Best Practices
September 20 2007 by Christian VanekJoin survey experts Dr. Ed Halteman and Christian Vanek, as they discuss ten of the most important best practices for surveying. If you are running a survey anytime in the next year — you can’t afford to miss this event.
When: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27th at 2PM EASTERN TIME
You’ll learn:
* Ten […]
Wikispaces adds SurveyGizmo Survey Widget
September 18 2007 by Scott McDanielWikispaces, an online self-service tool for creating your own wiki has integrated a SurveyGizmo survey/poll widget. The widget makes it easy to add a survey, poll, or contact form directly into your Wikispaces wiki page.
Wikispaces is a great service that allows your group, club, team, etc. to have a central place to share […]
SpellCheck!
September 10 2007 by Christian VanekJust a quick notice announcing a long overdue feature here at SurveyGizmo, Spell Check.
We are happy to announce that we have finally activated the spell check for the WYSIWYG editor we use.
Now bad spellers, such as myself, can click on a simple button to spell check their questions & descriptions! […]
New Online Survey Services: Consulting and Data Import
September 6 2007 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo’s online survey software is, if we say so ourselves, pretty darn user-friendly. But you might have a special project and need some programming, integration or other technical aid. Or maybe you want your survey to have a branded look and feel. Or you have old data you want to import into SurveyGizmo. Whatever […]
C|NET Mentions SurveyGizmo’s iPoll for the iPhone
August 30 2007 by Scott McDanielWe saw a nice spike in traffic the other day when CNET covered iPoll in their iPhone Apps section. This was a nice surprise, because we hadn’t seen iPoll covered since we released it back in July during the debut of the iPhone. iPoll is our free, quick polling service. You can ask your friends […]
Hey, did you know…?
August 24 2007 by Scott McDanielWhen we got the packet in the mail titled “Hey, did you know…?” we thought it was pretty cool that the third, fourth and fifth graders at the Edith Bowen Laboratory School in Logan, Utah, put together an almanac and shared it with us. And what was even cooler is that they used SurveyGizmo to […]
Get Out And Vote: Choose your favorite SXSW Panels!
August 22 2007 by Scott McDanielSXSW Interactive is a fantastic conference (heck, we don’t need to tell you that), and we think it’s so great that we want to take part by speaking at the festival in Austin next March.
We’ve pitched 6 ideas to the organizers:
Speed Dating for Coders and Designers: Find your Business Mate. Are you entrepreneurially minded? Do […]
SurveyGizmo Surveys on the Blackberry: Who knew!?
August 16 2007 by Christian VanekWe discovered something totally unexpected this morning while doing a log check. Apparently our efforts towards accessible surveys had an unintended (and beneficial) effect — survey takers are using their Blackberry web browsers to take surveys created in SurveyGizmo! Who knew!
Not being a Blackberry person myself, I didn’t even know this was possible. […]
Free Webinar: Building Better Surveys with SurveyGizmo’s New Features
August 15 2007 by Scott McDanielWe’re having a new feature round-up webinar
UPDATE: Space is filling up fast, so get in now if you’re interested
Day: Tues, August 21st
Time: 3pm Eastern Time
Topic: New features & tips, plus time- saving methods for effective survey building
Your Hosts:
Co-founders:
Christian Vanek,
Scott McDaniel
Learn why, with all of our new features & upgrades, SurveyGizmo is the best online survey […]
9 New Theme Templates!
July 31 2007 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo has nine more shiny new theme templates for your use. Add a little color to your life or go with something simpler. It’s all here. All of these templates can be configured on the Look & Feel Tab and include simple editable fields to modify the following
Logos: Add your logo into the header. […]
Surveys: For Fun or Profit?
July 29 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertSurveys can be fun! Newspapers, TV programs, radio shows and the like love to quote survey results because audiences find them entertaining. We enjoy learning other people’s personal habits or political views and seeing where we fit in. (Check out SurveyGizmo’s ipoll application (ipoll.surveygizmo.com) for some fun examples.)
But surveys are also a critical component of […]
New: Full Support of Non-English Characters
July 24 2007 by Christian VanekWe are happy to announce that SurveyGizmo finally supports non-English characters completely as of this past weekend. For those of you located or who survey outside of the US, this should be welcome news indeed!
Previously, certain sections of the SurveyGizmo application would “garble” non-English characters — making your surveys unattractive and unreadable. Thanks […]
New Servers: Faster reporting, faster surveys & improved security!
July 20 2007 by Christian VanekOver last weekend and Monday night, we at SurveyGizmo migrated the heart of our services to a new network of servers in San Antonio, Texas. It was necessary to move to better, faster machines because of the huge number of new customers who have started using our services in the past two months.
I’m happy to […]
Social Networking comes to iPoll
July 10 2007 by Scott McDanielWe have had a big response to our iPoll application. There have been well over 10,000 hits, and hundreds of users have created polls in the past few days. Now we have added a social networking aspect to iPoll. You can ask the world to cast their vote on your poll, and the world […]
10 Tips for Developing iPhone Applications
July 5 2007 by Scott McDanielA few days ago we got iPhone fever with the rest of the world. We decided to build a SurveGizmo Mobile Poll application for the iPhone, which you can view at mobile.surveygizmo.com. We learned a few things about developing Web 2.0 applications for the iPhone worth sharing!
Various sources like Gizmodo, FiGMA, and […]
iPoll.SurveyGizmo: Mobile Polls for the iPhone
July 4 2007 by Scott McDanielLike thousands of other people across the US, the team here at SurveyGizmo got a bad case of iPhone fever last Friday. We didn’t intend on actually buying the iPhone ourselves — but it was too slick to resist during our visit to the Apple store.
To celebrate the iPhone (and convince our bookkeeper that […]
SurveyGizmo iGoogle Gadget
June 28 2007 by Christian VanekWe received our first notice of a 3rd party application created with our API. Anyone who uses iGoogle dashboards to organize their lives is going to love this.
Bryan Richards, Editorial Director of Linux Magazine, developed a Google gadget for SurveyGizmo! Just like our Apple Widget and WordPress Plug-in, the gadget displays your surveys […]
The Most Accessible and Usable Survey Tool
June 27 2007 by Scott McDanielWe have seen a lot of interest recently in SurveyGizmo’s accessibility features and how our surveys meet current accessibility and usability standards, such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act or the British version the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act). We are happy to report we meet Section 508 (and likely the DDA as well). Customers […]
New Feature: User Permissions
June 20 2007 by Christian VanekThis is a great example of how everyone’s feedback is making SurveyGizmo better. So many of you asked for user-based permissions that we bumped it to the top of our list. Among other things, this feature allows you to create separate logins with restricted access to surveys and features in SurveyGizmo. You […]
What is a Successful Survey Project? (Hint: It’s not just the data)
June 11 2007 by Christian VanekVery few people create surveys out of boredom or simply for fun. Those few that do (such as myself) should seek professional help (I recommend my therapist).
No, when we create surveys, it is for a specific reason – to gain knowledge about a topic or issue so that we can make important […]
The Pareto Principle (80:20 Rule) in Survey Research
June 11 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertThe Pareto principle (which you may know as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many phenomena, 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.”
The Pareto principle also applies to survey research. When planning your […]
New Question Type: Image Chooser
June 8 2007 by Christian VanekNow that we let people upload images, we thought we should give you a fun way to use them!
The new Image Chooser question type displays several images and allows your respondents to pick an image of their choice by clicking on it. Here’s what it looks like:
We can see some great uses for this, […]
New Features: SurveyGizmo is Going Mobile!
June 4 2007 by Christian VanekWe recently discovered that SurveyGizmo surveys work quite well on mobile phones. Go figure! So this week’s big new feature is the ability to trigger & schedule mobile text messages from a survey. In addition, we have added a new survey template for designing mobile surveys called the “Mobile Survey Template.” Take a […]
New Question Type: Build-Your-Own Matrix
May 29 2007 by Christian VanekAlthough we don’t want to outshine this week’s other big feature release (the ability to upload images), we are happy to announce a new question type, the “Custom Matrix.” (If anyone has a better name for it, please, speak up!)
Like our other Matrix questions, this one allows you to ask several questions at once […]
New Feature: File & Image Uploads
May 26 2007 by Scott McDanielOur New Feature Roster is packed with our enhancements to SurveyGizmo, but we want to make sure you don’t overlook a major new feature that many of you have requested: uploading files for use in your surveys. Now you can easily upload images, such as your company logo, and add them to your surveys. You’ll […]
HIPAA and Safe Harbor Certifications
May 23 2007 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo is happy to announce that we now have HIPAA and Safe Harbor certifications. If you have never heard of these, you could probably stop reading here, but some of our customers (or wannabe customers) have been urging us for this. These are two forms of personal information protection. HIPAA is a US law regarding […]
Pay your pals (us!) via PayPal
May 22 2007 by Scott McDanielWe’re happy to announce that you now have the ability to use PayPal to pay for an upgrade to your SurveyGizmo account. A few of you, especially our non-US customers, have had difficulty with credit card transactions not being accepted by our system, and we invite you to take advantage of this quick and easy […]
Introducing: The SurveyGizmo Affiliate Program
May 18 2007 by Scott McDanielSpread the word and make some cash! Many of you asked us for it, so here it is. Today we’re announcing the SurveyGizmo Affiliate Program, which lets you earn cash for your referrals. Anyone with a SurveyGizmo account — even a Free one — can direct people to our site through this program. And when […]
HEX for digg: A new visualization tool
May 16 2007 by Scott McDanielSo Christian got a wild hair last week (it happens round here) when he heard about a contest for new flash visualizations of digg using their API. For those that don’t know digg is a social networking news site largely for geeks (yep that means us). It has over a million users that “digg” stories […]
Ed Halteman: Statistics and Market Research in Online Surveys
May 3 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertAt Survey Design and Analysis I am the resident survey expert and statistician. Okay I admit it, “I am a statistician”. Statistics is a big part of Market Research but I’m not sure that is well understood.
What exactly is a statistician and why is it important in Market Research? Quality Improvement guru, Bill […]
Ed Halteman: Incentives? Wrong Motivation, Wrong Outcome
April 13 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertWhy do people do surveys?
I don’t like the use of extrinsic incentives (bribes) for doing surveys. Wrong motivation, wrong expectations, wrong outcome!
Experiment in the Woods
I recently hired a dozen workers. I divided them at random into two groups of six. I took them out to the woods and took group A to a clearing with […]
New Report Options — Updated Tutorial
April 13 2007 by Scott McDanielOne of the ways in which SurveyGizmo stands out is its reporting capabilities, with eye-catching graphs, valuable filtering tools, and numerous exporting options. (And that’s just for starters.) In addition, reports now offer new options, including the ability to remove duplicate responses by IP address and rounding percentages to whole numbers.
These options are outlined in […]
New Tutorial Now Online: Duplicate Protection
April 12 2007 by Scott McDaniel“How can I stop a respondent from submitting more than one survey?” is one of the most common questions we get. The answer is now posted in a new tutorial.
Duplicate Protection (Limiting One User to One Response) covers the options available in SurveyGizmo. Keep in mind that you’ll want to use this tool before you […]
Ed Halteman: Creating a Useful Survey
March 24 2007 by Ed Halteman - A SurveyGizmo Survey ExpertWe’re happy to welcome survey expert Ed Halteman to the SurveyGizmo family. Ed took his first course on survey design in 1978 and has designed and analyzed more than 250 surveys in the past 10 years. Ed, who has a master’s degree in applied mathematics and a Ph.D. in statistics, currently heads Survey Design […]
New: SPSS Export
March 23 2007 by Christian VanekLast week at SxSW Scott and I agreed not to post boring “feature release” blog posts anymore. But I’m going to turn right around and make an exception in this case, because exporting to SPSS is a long-awaited feature for many of our research users.
For those of you not familiar with SPSS, it is […]
“SurveyGizmo makes online surveys, polls a snap” says Boulder County Business Report
March 16 2007 by Scott McDanielSurveyGizmo just got a nice little write up in the Boulder County Business Report and I thought I would share it with all of you. Reporter Hilary Lane did a great job. She went above and beyond by interviewing some customers like me.dium as well as tracking down an analyst from Gartner Research -
“They […]
Updated FAQ
March 1 2007 by Scott McDanielFrom time to time (okay, it’s actually on a consistent basis!), you send us questions regarding SurveyGizmo’s design features, tracking capabilities, reporting options and more. So we’ve gathered together the most frequently asked questions and posted them in an updated FAQ. If you want to know about system requirements, design customizations, publishing a survey, […]
New tutorials now online
February 16 2007 by Scott McDanielWant to know the first mistake many companies make when designing surveys? Are you looking for a nifty trick when testing a survey? Confused about how SurveyGizmo’s new filter tool works when you’re creating a report?
We’ve added a couple new tutorials this week: The “Sweet Sixteen” Tips For Building Online Surveys and Creating a Report: […]
SurveyGizmo goes south by southwest
February 15 2007 by Scott McDanielBecause Austin is the place to be in early March, we’re hitting the road and heading to SXSW Interactive (South by Southwest). The top interactive folks will be there, and it’s a a great place to network and pick up ideas. We’re hoping to meet up with some of you; getting your feedback is invaluable […]
Keep track of new features
February 9 2007 by Scott McDanielWe’re constantly making improvements to our product and our site, and now you can keep track of those improvements — at a glance. If you have been away from SurveyGizmo for a few days or (gasp) weeks, check out our New Feature Roster. This list will help you catch up and see what has improved […]
Announcing: SurveyGizmo and ExactTarget partnership
February 6 2007 by Scott McDanielWe’re really excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with ExactTarget to offer highly integrated email and survey solutions for ExactTarget customers. This level of integration is groundbreaking. Sure, there have been integrated tools before, but now you have the full power of both an enterprise level survey tool combined with an enterprise level Email […]