I didn’t think that a service to build your own online forms sounded very exciting, until the creators of Wufoo walked me through the system last week. Wufoo is so flexible, usable and has such good reporting that it made me want to create some forms just so I could use it. The service launched publicly just minutes ago. It crashed after initial coverage here, but is now back up. It looks like there may be a little kink in the system here or there, but it’s already very usable.
Founded by Kevin Hale, Chris and Ryan Campbell, Wufoo is funded by two angel investors and the VC firm Ycombinator. That funding added up to $118,000, for all you bubble heads out there, and the project is as solid as the funding is sane. The team’s other work includes ParticleTree.com and Treehousemagazine.com. Wufoo is made under the name Infinity Box, Inc. and is based in Tampa, Florida.
Here’s a sample survey about coverage of enterprise software on TechCrunch – hopefully the server is back up for good! I would post the form itself here, but I think that was a big part of the load. Here’s the results of the survey so far.
Wufoo makes great use of ajax to create a very nice user experience on the admin side of things. You can place your finished form in either an embedded iframe (as I have in this post) or on a dedicated web page. You can receive new responses by email or RSS, response data can be filtered and displayed in a variety of ways in the reports section and there is easy control over the look and feel of the forms your users interact with. There are more functions available than I’ll go into here, but the system is still very easy to use.
Free accounts include let you create 3 forms with 10 fields, 100 submissions and 10 reports. Premium accounts bump up these numbers, allow respondents to upload files and be redirected to a URL of your choosing after the form is completed. Four service levels are available at between $9 and $199 per month. Wufoo also supports all UTFF characters, so forms can be multilingual.
Competitors include Form Assembly and WyaCracker.
Wufoo forms are easy to integrate gracefully into other pages and the system is set up to handle large numbers of responses. (Or so it seemed before the server crash.) Form creation is an important function and the team behind Wufoo has leveraged some of the best in contemporary technology. I think this one’s a winner.
“… set up to handle large numbers of responses” Not exactly, their site is down.
Sounds great! Can’t wait to see it, unfortunately their site is down for me too. Dare I say the TechCrunch effect?
I used Wufoo few months ago. Really nice web app – easy to use interface with good set of basic components. I remember I made forms just because it was fun
Hope they’ll bring the whole thing up and running soon.
Glad to see they’ve nailed the scalability issue. heh.
A piece of junk. If it’s not capable of handling a large number of requests, it is not worth a penny.
This is a very useful find – sign up took less than ONE MINUTE – and quality forms were created within minutes – with a very easy to understand user interface
Now that it’s up, I find it to be very slick. I’m interested to see what creative uses people can put it to.
How is this different from PulsePoll which has been around for years?
Who wants to take bets on when the idea for Zaplets will come back? Form filling inside of email?
1. Raise $118,000 to build a simple app that enables people to build online forms.
2. ?????
3. Profit!
Honestly i dont see it so great. It is useful, it has some nice features but not the best. Anyway thanks for the information.
Ease of use is very high with Wufoo… But it got me thinking, I’ve been meaning to check out Zoho Creator. Wow! For the price (free) Zoho is hard to beat and it looks as capable at creating easy forms with database back ends as Wufoo.
Just my $.02
Having just used the app I agree it is slick and easy to get started.
However, my main concern is this (from a business point of view):
If web marketers and market research firms are going to use this, will they still not have to hire a professional developer to actually connect the data received through the forms (e.g. to a database of registered users) to make sense of it?
Using csv files is fine for a small set of users, but with 10,000+ submissions, cutting-n-pasting the data between spreadsheets & databases simply becomes unmanageable.
If all you want is a simply poll or a similar basic form, then there are already good services such as Zoho Polls (which is free).
Is there a sound business model here?
So you must have some kind of a specia account because free accounts are limited to 100 entries a month and you already have 942?
Is the AJAX worth it? I use the CMS Drupal to build websites most days and there is a free module you install to create forms, just like Wufoo. It’s integrated with your site which allows you to track users and has 90% of the features (including CVS, Excel etc…). The only thing that is lack is the nice AJAX interface. Is that really worth it? Not to me. Too bad, as this is an awesome product.
still down damned
To all of the sketpics. There is a HUGE market for small to medium market research firms who do online polling on a contract basis for LARGE fortune 500 companies. Most of these smaller companies cannot afford to hire an IT / Web Developer at 60-80k a year – so having a site like this, with easy to make forms, and exportable Excel files will be a huge asset to them.
Now, the only real trick is marketing to those small market research firms…..
I think it’s a great product. Creating forms online has been an IT nightmare for most. The use of Ajax to improve the UX is also excellent. Good luck to these guys.
Michael said… “I didn’t think that a service to build your own online forms sounded very exciting”
Anyone who’s done web development of the “for a friend” nature knows this is one of the biggest nightmares. Your local church/school/community group is always going to end up wanting to add small forms or surveys to their sites. And if you don’t want to have to deal with the IT of each one every time, this is a great option. Ryan Merket also brings up a great point about smaller firms with big data dreams and small IT budgets.
Wufoo is a fantastic product – an incredible (and appropriate) use of AJAX, a well designed interface, a smart focused product… if they’re having launch issues, let’s cut them some slack!
I first heard of ParticleTree.com through DustinDiaz.com, a Yahoo developer and great resource, and again when researching the lightbox javascript lib. After reading ParticleTree, I stumpled onto Wufoo.com. This site is a great example of Web 2.0, and almost pushes it too far with all the geewiz.
Another thing I like about the site is it’s built on Prototype, JSON and Script.alico.us
Great Job.
What is this fad of websites that let you “build forms”. All of a sudden we need a ton of form builders?
Excel, Access and IT departments have long filled this need, and, if you want a serious form-building app look at InfoPath. Its far beyond anything this little “Web 2″ toy can do.
When will people learn that building “applications” in AJAX and HTML is just not efficient. Whats so special about intellisensed boxes and drag and drop? We’ve had this forever, it just hasn’t been in HTML. We should be moving back to the desktop shortly enough when people realize “Ajax” is unmaintainable — its the swinging pendulum of computer science.
I would think the traffic load is due more to the DIGG effect.
Have you seen what this post and the form/poll is has is making to RSS readers and Planets?
Funny, people complain about server loss – just tired this site and it was down – it came back – just as wuoo has – give them a break – ditto Jake
I’ve been beta testing this since there first round of private testers, I’ve helped find and squash a fair amount of bugs and I can tell you from experience these developers are VERY OPEN to your suggestions. See a better way to do something? Suggest it. See something that is a little confusing? Suggest it. If you think the pricing policy is unreasonable than mention that as well. As for the site being down, …give them a break. Tech Crunch goes down sometimes too…does that make TC poorly run/prepared also? It happens, get over it.
Wufoo rules. I love it. It is possibly the best new Web 2.0 app I’ve seen this year.
I think many programmers (ahem, Andre de blah blah) are completely out of touch with the reality of the market.
Not everyone is a database programmer.
Not everyone knows HTML/XML/AJAX.
In fact, most people, surprise, are NOT programmers.
I do web design for small businesses and non-profits — I completely recognize that Wufoo could be in huge demand among my clients.
They’re teachers who want to reach out to their students, they’re grandparents who want to get in touch with their fellow church goers, they’re pastry chefs looking for ideas, landlords reaching out to tenants, and so on.
Wufoo is the perfect solution for the small businesses – the non-profits, schools and so many other places that can’t afford overpaid IT
Bravo to Wufoo for an incredible web app! You guys rock.
There’s a more detailed description of Wufoo forms, screen captures, and a live data-entry form with required field validation at http://oakleafb...h-for-form.html. The post also compares Wufoo features with InfoPath 2007 and Access 2007 forms.
–rj
There’s a new site out there,
It’s much faster , easier of user
You design the form as if u’re drawing it,
just drag & drop
try it
http://www.formlogix.com
There is another online forms builder out there called The Blue Form (http://www.theblueform.com).
It features an AJAX style form builder as well as the ability to assign approval workflows to the forms.
This makes it more of an online process automation / eforms workflow site rather than just a form builder.
It could be used in most office type environments to automate paper based processed. We are currently trailing it at the company where I work and the reception has been quite good.
Checkout this new Web 2.0 Web Form design application.
http://www.formlogix.com
It’s fast + easy to use and has much more form options then wufoo.
AND IT’S COMPLETELY FREE
Nenest provides more features. It has many pre-programmed controls for input fields, such as email, currency number, ID number, address, phone number, rich text editor etc.
Its rich text editor is really nice. You can build Word like document, and directly insert local pictures.
And many more, check there web site: http://www.nenest.com
And a demo Contact Us Form: http://nenest.c...w.aspx?fid=2138
Pizza Order Form: http://nenest.c...w.aspx?fid=2139
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