BuzzDash: More Survey, Less Chatter

I'm not totally sold on the idea of Web surveys. They're generally unscientific, poorly worded, and the results are often biased. BuzzDash, a social polling site that tracks trends and opinions without masquerading them as fact, has a new approach. The site still suffers from some of the same ills that of other polling sites, but at least they're bringing some new ideas to the table.





Unlike SodaHead or PollPub, BuzzDash removes some of the more inane social aspects of the service and focuses on the basics. You can still create, comment on , and share polls on your personal blog or Website by creating a widget out of your BuzzDash poll, but there are no popularity contests, no profiles and comments on the profiles, and no rush to see who can collect the most friends. There's also a lack of dummy polls designed to solicit specific answers.



Regardless of whether the high quality of the polls is a result of some editorial work by the BuzzDash team or a sign of the BuzzDash community's sophistication, the polls at BuzzDash are a breath of fresh air. Compared to other polling services, BuzzDash's polls are interesting, articulate, and educational. Users can click on the polls to comment, and although the comments may not be as inspiring as the questions themselves, the polls stay open for weeks and months at a time instead of days and hours, leading to more answers and a larger sample.

BuzzDash has polls in five active categories, and each category is broken into subcategories that further define the polls. For example, the "entertainment" category is broken into subcategories like "music," "movies," and "television." Because BuzzDash is so granular about the types of polls and where they live, you can go directly to the types of polls that interest you and participate in the discussion, or learn more about what people are saying. If you're interested in how people are reacting to the announcement that Conan O'Brien will take over for Leno in 2009, you'll find that poll in the television section.



Accounts at BuzzDash are free, and watching the polls as they evolve over weeks and months can be fun and enlightening, both for the casual user who wants to participate and the interested observer who's curious about trends and opinions. The polls themselves really shine through because there's less focus on the social relationships between users.

The strength of the service is in creating interesting questions that yield interesting answers and lively discussions, not in creating some kind of social network or popularity contest.