Polldaddy: A Privacy Conscious Web Service for Polls and Surveys
If you have been following this blog, you will have read our series on the Dangers of Internet Quizzes. The first articles discussed the dangers of taking these types of quizzes, as well as the privacy ramifications. We then moved on to safe quiz sites, and the differences between the good hosts and the data miners. Techlaurels promised to review two quiz hosts that were good for both bloggers and quiz takers. Our last posts discussed one of these hosts: QuizRevolution. Today, we are going to review the second site: Polldaddy.
To start, Techlaurels migrated the quiz from Part 2 of the series over to Polldaddy. That quiz is embedded below. The review of Polldaddy follows.
Quiz: How Facebook Savvy Are You?
If you have read through our series, you should be able to ace this test with no problems!
This quiz is hosted at Polldaddy. Polldaddy respects your security and does NOT collect or share your data. It is perfectly SAFE to take this quiz. NO data is being recorded at all, and you do not need to log in or register to take the test. You do NOT need to connect any social media accounts either.
This quiz is for entertainment purposes ONLY.
How did you do? Let us know in the comment section!
Review of Polldaddy
I think Polldaddy has been around for about as long as blogging software. When blogging was first becoming popular, Polldaddy polls seemed ubiquitous on the web. I am not quite sure why their popularity had diminished. Polldaddy remains an excellent service. They have both free plans and paid plans, which of course, offer additional features.
Polldaddy is privacy conscious, and is NOT out to mine your data. Polldaddy makes their money by selling premium services, rather than by stealing users' personal information. You can be assured that NONE of the dangers discussed in our previous articles apply to Polldaddy.
Polldaddy quizzes are easy to embed into your blog or website. They can also be shared via URL, e-mail, or invitation. Unlike QuizRevolution, Polldaddy offers https protocol for websites or blogs utilizing the https protocol. In practical terms, that means no warnings about "mixed" or "insecure" content or embedding issues. (If you look at the paragraph BELOW the embedded quiz, you'll see a link to the pop-up, as well as to the Polldaddy hosted version. These demonstrate the three options for sharing available on a free plan.)
Unfortunately, there is no nice "share" button at Polldaddy like there is at QuizRevolution. Not having that share button means it is less likely your quiz will go viral, and you'll need to add your own "share" type script to the page on which the quiz is hosted if you want folks to share it.
Polldaddy has an easy to use Quiz Editor. It is very similar to QuizRevolution's, but with more flexibility. Polldaddy allows for as many answer choices as you want to provide. Like QuizRevolution, a question can have 1 right answer or more than 1. However, you cannot ask open-ended questions. You can have URLs, phone numbers, or HTML snippets as answers, but otherwise, it is multiple choice. Therefore, Polldaddy is better for multiple choice or true/false quizzes.
Polldaddy also uses a drag and drop quiz maker interface. I found this to be very tiring on the wrist. You must "drag" a new field when you want to add another. That means you need to drag that "multiple choice" box 10 times for a 10 question quiz. I found myself longing for an "add question" button to press.
Polldaddy also includes a "Style Editor" to make your quiz blend into your site better. There are several presets from which to choose. They also offer an app that allows you to use Polldaddy from an ipad; Techlaurels did NOT test this app.
Polldaddy offers limited statistics on free plans. I found them easier to access than those at QuizRevolution. Polldaddy also allows you to set a "pass" score. Overall, I found Polldaddy to be a less glitchy site. However, there are pluses and minuses to both.
I'm not in love with the way Polldaddy embeds into this blog. I do not like all of the scrollbars. I do not like the fact that Polldaddy does not "auto page break" after a certain number of questions. I could manually break the quiz into separate pages, but that is time consuming, and it is not intuitive in the editor. But Polldaddy inserts no ads into its quizzes, which is a plus. It offers more flexibility in appearance and in format.
Polldaddy is privacy conscious, and is NOT out to mine your data. Polldaddy makes their money by selling premium services, rather than by stealing users' personal information. You can be assured that NONE of the dangers discussed in our previous articles apply to Polldaddy.
Polldaddy quizzes are easy to embed into your blog or website. They can also be shared via URL, e-mail, or invitation. Unlike QuizRevolution, Polldaddy offers https protocol for websites or blogs utilizing the https protocol. In practical terms, that means no warnings about "mixed" or "insecure" content or embedding issues. (If you look at the paragraph BELOW the embedded quiz, you'll see a link to the pop-up, as well as to the Polldaddy hosted version. These demonstrate the three options for sharing available on a free plan.)
Unfortunately, there is no nice "share" button at Polldaddy like there is at QuizRevolution. Not having that share button means it is less likely your quiz will go viral, and you'll need to add your own "share" type script to the page on which the quiz is hosted if you want folks to share it.
Polldaddy has an easy to use Quiz Editor. It is very similar to QuizRevolution's, but with more flexibility. Polldaddy allows for as many answer choices as you want to provide. Like QuizRevolution, a question can have 1 right answer or more than 1. However, you cannot ask open-ended questions. You can have URLs, phone numbers, or HTML snippets as answers, but otherwise, it is multiple choice. Therefore, Polldaddy is better for multiple choice or true/false quizzes.
Polldaddy also uses a drag and drop quiz maker interface. I found this to be very tiring on the wrist. You must "drag" a new field when you want to add another. That means you need to drag that "multiple choice" box 10 times for a 10 question quiz. I found myself longing for an "add question" button to press.
Polldaddy also includes a "Style Editor" to make your quiz blend into your site better. There are several presets from which to choose. They also offer an app that allows you to use Polldaddy from an ipad; Techlaurels did NOT test this app.
Polldaddy offers limited statistics on free plans. I found them easier to access than those at QuizRevolution. Polldaddy also allows you to set a "pass" score. Overall, I found Polldaddy to be a less glitchy site. However, there are pluses and minuses to both.
I'm not in love with the way Polldaddy embeds into this blog. I do not like all of the scrollbars. I do not like the fact that Polldaddy does not "auto page break" after a certain number of questions. I could manually break the quiz into separate pages, but that is time consuming, and it is not intuitive in the editor. But Polldaddy inserts no ads into its quizzes, which is a plus. It offers more flexibility in appearance and in format.
In the two weeks or so between creating my account at Polldaddy and trying to log back in, the log-in process changed. Polldaddy now requires you log in with a WordPress account. I had great difficulties trying to log in through WordPress, who kept complaining my account had not been activated. I needed to poke around the support pages, and attempt to log in from there, to find a place to have the activation e-mail re-sent. If you have a WordPress blog, this will make creating a Polldaddy account even easier. However, if you do not like the WordPress ToS, you should NOT use Polldaddy. (However, there are really no "gotchas" in the WordPress terms or policies of which to be aware.)
Polldaddy has been around forever (in Internet time.) I can remember taking weekly Polldaddy-based "Lost" surveys on a recap site, back during Season 1. That was 2004. Polldaddy has never been accused of shady activity or of compromising your privacy. Since they have been profitable for well over a decade, I cannot imagine that changing any time soon. They should also be around for a long time to come
Polldaddy offers polls and surveys, as well as quizzes. These features will be reviewed in a future post.
Polldaddy has been around forever (in Internet time.) I can remember taking weekly Polldaddy-based "Lost" surveys on a recap site, back during Season 1. That was 2004. Polldaddy has never been accused of shady activity or of compromising your privacy. Since they have been profitable for well over a decade, I cannot imagine that changing any time soon. They should also be around for a long time to come
Polldaddy offers polls and surveys, as well as quizzes. These features will be reviewed in a future post.
Polldaddy or QuizRevolution for Creating Quizzes?
BOTH sites are fantastic resources for creating Internet Quizzes. Both sites make money from paid plans, rather than from data harvesting. Which site is better will depend on your particular needs. I am going to keep my accounts open at both sites, and use whichever seems better for what I am trying to achieve.
I like QuizRevolution for its sharing features and it's neat interface. I like Polldaddy for its flexibility. Polldaddy is good for sites using the https protocol, because it will not throw up any browser warnings. However, I like the "offsite" presentation better at QuizRevolution.
Those who feel comfortable tinkering with code will probably prefer Polldaddy. If you like to tinker with code, Polldaddy offers greater customization. If you never want to look at code, and you are looking for a VERY simple, easy to share interface, you'll probably prefer QuizRevolution.
Probably the best way to decide is to take both of our quizzes, and decide for yourself. Our QuizRevolution Quizzes can be accessed on the blog at
- http://techlaurels.blogspot.com/2017/05/quiz-what-type-of-tech-user-are-you.html
(What Type of Tech User Are You? A Multiple Choice Test) - http://techlaurels.blogspot.com/2017/06/keyboard-shortcuts-tips-quiz.html
(How Well Do You Know Keyboard Shortcuts? A Fill-in-the-Blank Test)
Or online at:
- http://quizrevolution.com/ch/a251633 (What Type of Tech User Are You?)
- http://quizrevolution.com/ch/a251643 (Keyboard Shortcuts.)
And of course, you can find the links to the Polldaddy Quiz under the embedded quiz (above.)
Polls and Surveys
Thus far, we have ONLY discussed Internet Quizzes. Next, we will tackle polls and surveys. BOTH QuizRevolution and Polldaddy are also great services for hosting surveys and polls, for the same reason they're great quiz hosts. Stay tuned to this blog for reviews of these functions.
Comments:
As always, Techlaurels would love to hear your feedback. Do you have any questions about Polldaddy? About Internet Quizzes? Do you have any feedback? Please let us know in the comments.
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