Easy-Poll.com Offers Free Online Polls for Webmasters
January 31st, 2008
One way for a fledgling website to gain traffic and encourage repeat visitors is for its administrator to add interactive features such as polls or surveys. A new service called Easy-Poll.com is offering webmasters a way to install such features on their sites free of both monetary costs and on-site advertising.
Website owners can register for a free account at Easy-Poll with a minimum of information - only a first name and email address is required for signup and confirmation. After registering and logging in, members can use the simple interface to choose between multiple choice and yes/no polls, and then choose among a few different styles that affect the background and button colors for each poll.
For multiple choice polls, it is possible to include up to 10 different options for answers. After the member provides the necessary data such as the URL of the website, the poll question, and the desired answer choices, the new poll can be displayed on the member’s website for visitors to begin recording their opinions. The polling data is tracked and stored on Easy-Poll’s servers, making it convenient for webmasters because no extra databases or software needs to be installed in order to run the polling widget.
Easy-Poll also works with many popular online services, making it possible to create myspace surveys, xanga surveys, or blog polls with platforms such as Blogger or Typepad. Each member can create up to 99 yes/no questionnaires or multiple choice surveys, enabling you to collect data on a wide variety of topics. This can be useful for bloggers with significant numbers of regular readers because they can use the polling data to assess the particular preferences of their audiences and monetize accordingly.
Meanwhile, the Easy-Poll.com site itself definitely appears to be in the beta stages. The content is rather sparse in places; for example, the “Terms of Use” page is currently empty save for the title, and the Help/FAQ section contains only two questions. It is also unclear exactly how the site is generating revenue. There is no charge to webmasters for running the polls, nor is there any type of advertising or revenue sharing agreement. My best guess is that the site is offering the free polling service as a way to build a large user base and traffic stream, after which additional paid services or on-site advertising can be added later.
At any rate, as long as the service is free and there are no unacceptable terms, it is still useful for certain applications. After I build up a larger readership for this site, I might try it out myself as a way of assessing how many people are actually reading the content.
In contrast to the earlier article about 
This humorous piece by Dave Hughes is a good example of how the psychology of junk mail marketing can keep us hanging on to the idea of striking it rich through the mail even though deep down we know that it’s extremely unlikely. Although the author does not actually specify, I could imagine that the two million dollar piece of mail in question was for one of those Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes that we can never seem to win.
This article by Carole-Anne Franco provides a good overview of a relatively obscure game developed by Alpha 72 called Chromadrome 2. Although released in August 2007, it is somewhat of a throwback to the older arcade style games but with more modern graphics. Like those familiar games of yore, it is both simple and surprisingly addictive.
Writing an argumentative paper is one of those things that most of us do not particularly like doing and often resort to procrastinating, but are usually required to complete at least once during our high school or college years. If you happen to find yourself in such a situation, I will try to make the process easier by explaining what an argumentative paper is and provide some steps that you can follow in order to write one effectively. 
If you are having problems with your computer running too slowly, you may be tempted to figure out how to change the CPU speed. In most cases, however, it is not the CPU hardware itself that is slowing you down, but rather a combination of factors having to do with various software and registry files that have accumulated in your hard drive. With a few simple maintenance operations, it is possible to speed up your computer and reduce the frequency of errors and crashes without having to resort to expensive hardware purchases or costly repair bills. Here are a few tips to optimize your computer’s performance:
Back in 2006, the U.S. Congress passed a law that has caused much confusion in the online casino industry. Titled as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, this provision was sneakily attached to an unrelated port security bill in order to win over key opponents and insure final passage. Contrary to what many people have heard, the law does not actually criminalize online gambling in the USA but instead prohibits money transfers from banks or other financial institutions to online gambling sites under the guise of preventing money laundering. Most people in the USA can still legally use online casino sites, although 11 states have severely restricted or prohibited the practice. 
While reading through an ebook on search engine optimization, I ran across a reference to the famous “link bomb” campaign that managed to get George W. Bush’s White House biography page listed at #1 in Google for the keyword “miserable failure”. In January 2007, Google made changes to its algorithm that caused this ranking to be dropped, and since then has generally filtered out or delayed the effect of large numbers of incoming links to a site, particularly in cases where such links are created within a relatively short period of time. 
If you are the kind of person who likes to shop around for the best deal before committing yourself to a potentially expensive purchase, websites such as Savebuckets.co.uk can help you save lots of money during your online shopping adventures. Savebuckets does not actually sell any items directly; rather, they function as a convenient price comparison guide that lets you compare prices of products across a wide range of online retail outlets. 
Today I managed to procure a well-written article by Melissa Gover that discusses the money-making advice of Robert G. Allen, a notable author who has published some interesting books about real estate and financial investments. Overall, Melissa’s article agrees with what I have read on other websites - the strategies that Robert Allen lays out in his books are theoretically lucrative, but in practice are difficult for someone who is not experienced in the real estate field to implement successfully. 
This article by Angela Baca describes creative ways in which teachers can make daily use of rubber stamps to assist in their educational endeavors. My mother, who has been a professional educator for more years than she probably wants to count, uses some similar techniques to those described in the article, except instead of customized rubber stamps, she uses a “star system” in which students are awarded various numbers or colors of stars for significant accomplishments or good behavior. It has worked fairly well for most of her classes, and often encourages competition among students as a way to keep them motivated to complete their assignments. Using rubber stamps can accomplish a similar purpose, but as Angela Baca’s article describes, they are useful for other tasks as well. 
One of the reasons that I have come to loathe most of American society is its overly litigious tendencies. For example, here in South Texas it has become commonplace for a certain segment of the population to make a regular income through the lucrative potential of personal injury lawsuits. People often collect unreasonably large sums of money from settlements with drivers or their insurance companies in minor accident cases where there was no substantial damage or injury. 
Most of us who have been blogging for any significant amount of time have heard the phrase, “content is king”. It has been repeated in so many publications that it has surely become cliché by now. I have read articles from a few folks who have challenged the notion somewhat, claiming that things like traffic generation or social media have become more important. However, even if it is technically not “king”, few people could reasonably disagree with the idea that content is still the ultimate backbone of any website. Without some kind of actual written content, one cannot be indexed in search engines, and it is unlikely that a website could make much money without displaying any text (although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has actually tried this). 
When we think about the topic of gun control, most of us Libertarians would like to see it associated with the proper handling of a firearm, especially if this becomes necessary while defending oneself against a tyrannical government. Most politicians, however, believe that they can somehow control guns by restricting or criminalizing their ownership, resulting in a safer society with less violent crime. Here are 10 quick bullet points (pun somewhat intended) that can be used to defend our basic rights of self-defense against the misguided politicians and uninformed sheeple. Meanwhile, for a good laugh you can also read my report from last August that pointed out why 