Polls are popular on the Web because they are interactive without requiring too much effort. They are also a good way to collect a lot of data from users across the Web. SodaHead, a startup founded by former MySpace executives Jason Feffer and Michael Glazer, announced an $8.4 million series B investment today. The round was led by Mission Ventures and Mohr Davidow. (The company previously raised $4.25 million from Mohr Davidow, Ron Conway, and Tech Coast Angels in January, 2007).
Since the site launched last September, it has attracted 600,000 registered members who have submitted three million answers. SodaHead competes with PollDaddy, SurveyMonkey, and Vizu, although it is targeted more at the MySpace crowd. And you can add songs, videos,and images to the polls. Think Yahoo Answers meets PollDaddy. The company says it is really going after Yahoo Answers. Says Glazer;
We are a community site, around any topic people are taking about. With Yahoo Answers, what they missed is the community aspect.
Although any question a user makes can be spread virally as a widget, 90 percent of SodaHead’s traffic still goes through its site. Traffic has been ramping up nicely to 1.2 million U.S. visitors a month, according to comScore (Yahoo Answers, which seems to be doing fine just the way it is, has 33.6 million and growing).
The site is only running Google AdSense ads right now, but since SodaHead is building up a database of the preferences of members based on what kinds of questions they answer in different categories, and even their specific answers, Glazer is confident SodaHead will be able to do better ad targeting overtime. Another revenue source is helping brands engage with consumers through their own polls.
Holy Shit! $8M?
Polls are a feature, not a product.
Adsense? LOLOLOL
Destination site? LOLOLOL
Polling website startups are HUGE in LA right now. I interviewed at a couple polling places. Every single place I interview with here in LA gets pissed when I tell them I want to sell my social networking script on the side.
They want me to give up my extra revenue and only work for them. I tried to tell them that script sales are automated.
I can’t wait to find an employer that will live with me selling my social networking script while working for them.
At any rate, I can’t name the startups, but there are a few here. This is the next BIG WAVE of websites.
Polling people accurately and in a useful way produces huge cash from car makers and other manufacturers.
I can actually see this site going places. Kinda like digg meets social polling. Clever idea!
I don’t know, maybe we just have a different picture on how to spend money up here in Canada but Erick, what the hell does a polling site do with 8M?
@Chris: I agree there are a number of players in this field .. that just sell the data to the highest bidder.. check out the traffic ranks for some popular ones
http://trends.google.com/websi.....amp;sort=0
Good to see SodaHead on top. Go team!
I bet you SodaHead will be the new facebook by 2009. I’d have killed myself long ago out of sheer boredom if it wasn’t for this site!
8 million for a form?
sodahead is awesome… good to see it getting some recognition!
I spend most of my time on this site I don’t even go to my space any more
it’s the best
deadhead360
I joined SodaHead last year because MySpace had gotten more dull than staring at paint. There are always good discussions on all the topics I’m interested in when I go to SodaHead. Political discussions are intelligent and interesting. Those are my favorite.
I find that SodaHead has taken the best features of social networking and mashed them together with an atmosphere of good conversation with people I have never met before. Unlike other social networks, I’m not being plagued by lonely Nigerians or the latest and greatest marketing schemes. Feel free to look me up.. JadedTLC
I have to say that SH is a great site, and a large interactive community, the polling aspect forces general interaction, to tell the truth unlike places like Myspace.com the emphasis is on interaction…
Their name does not imply seriosity, thus I would not trust their polls if I were a business that needs this kind of info. If I have to pay money for it, it better be something reliable, or at least sound like it…
The SodaHead employees need to go back to work and let the opinions fly. What’s with all the astroturf these days?
We see you a mile away, b/cw we read every article/comment. To compare MySspace and sodahead is probably the dumbest thing i have ever seen in TC comments.
@Chris, maybe you didnt notice, but MySpace is the exception rather than the rule in the online space. LA companies are like yahoo!, they simply will not leave $ on the table. They will fail as a result. Deliver more value than you get or you lose. Game over End of story.
I’ve been a member of SodaHead for over a year and I love it! You get to post your opinion on important and not so important issues. Debate with people, meet new people. I’ve gotten a few of my real life friends and family members to join, as well, and it only adds to the fun! The site “masters” as I like to call them are also very quick in responding to any user issues, whether they be technical or personal. Thanks, SodaHead!
@14: Nailed them posers! Sheesh! Blatant much?
Harry “funny that all those comments came in within about 10 minutes” Wang
$8 mil for a polling web site? How & Why do these guys need so much money for something really easy to do like this? Perhaps a $200,000 fund is all that is needed.
Software/IT and mainly the so called Web 2.0 are the most hyped industry compared to other sectors. I can’t believe all these multi million dollar fundings that are being reported all over the web from time to time regarding these startups that don’t require a huge budget. This is unimaginable that these applications which are not hard to develop and no need for R&D could be so expansive to fund. These startups are more expansive compared to a budget for a similar size project in tangible cutting edge technology in photonics/opto-electronics/laser product development from say, Corning corporation.
This makes me think of quiting my contracting & free lance software development role so that I can get into the game.
I wrote a multivariate analysis (multiple regression) engine for a local vendor which does online polling & online work survey last year (2007), and it didn’t cost that much for them to pay me. The website was developed by another team of 6 in .NET and they incorporated the J# API, I wrote into the development of the whole application. It was a 2 month project, which didn’t cost millions (even much less than a million!!).
8M for a polling site? Wow. Polls are great forms of user feedback however. If you can incorporate polls into some sort of viral challenge, you could really get some great traffic and user feedback. Maybe they have considered this… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
I’ve been a member of sodahead since the site started and I haven’t been back to the old stomping grounds (other poll sites) since. I was a member of every poll site out there but sodahead is by far my favorite. Congrats to Fef and the crew at sodahead! It’s a great site, lots of fun and a great way to express your opinion. Although I wish sodahead would go back to the old wayand let us down rave at will without the questions when we do…It’s a little more fun that way!
@14,
I don’t care, I just wanted to work there. 1 Polling company may still hire me here in LA. I have to wait to see if somebody leaves.
The thing is though I just want to go in at 9 and leave at 5 and work in between. I am not about to start my own polling company because I don’t have the contacts to sell the survey data. That’s the rev model as I understood it.
As soon as you tell them you are selling a script, it’s like “oh … yeah … conflict of interest”
I guess that’s life. I think what I will do after the script goes on sale is just not tell them I am selling it and leave it out of my resume. Every single time this happened to me. I’m a little sick of it.
@chris
Quit being a money-grubbing idiot sheesh!
Your ideas simply suck.
Have pride in what you do, but not super-ego.
Polling sites do seem to be getting noticed lately. My little side project (pollstacks.com) was noticed by a Wall Street Journal reporter who plans on doing an article on polling sites. Perhaps SodaHead, given its founders background and recent funding, will be a centerpiece of the article.
@Chris
Product manage or developer? Pick ONE!
@Reality Check I was wondering what your opinion was on polling communities/websites. My mom used MySpace in the very beginning and has 40k friends, most of which are probably bands/marketers. I was just making a point that she no longer visits myspace, but maybe 3-4 times a year to add images or something. For her, it’s her one-stop flickr. She joined SodaHead as well and I like being able to compare answers with her on things that I would never think to ask.
I wasn’t “comparing” myspace in a direct relationship. Just talking social networking in general. I’m sorry if I offended you.
@beerco chris - you are in the wrong field man, you should be on reality television. since you’re in LA, you should do some casting calls.
They got $8.5 million for that, you got to be fucking kidding me???
I have been a member of SodaHead since April 2007!! Its the ideal place to share your opinions on every topic you can possible imagine and then some. I love that the guys interact with us daily…and are constantly asking our opinions on how to make things better. Well done guys!! Congratulations and thanks for giving us such an awesome place to play!!! ;o) Looking forward to year #2!!!
Thanks for mention - congrats to Sodahead - stay tuned for some cool news from the 2 person, unfunded, PollDaddy empire in Ireland…
Pollwidgets. Whoda’ thunk?
That last comment is awesome … 2 person, unfunded … brilliant. Congrats to them. I wish we had the idiotic venture capitalists over here in the UK and Eire as you guys enjoy over there in the US. Who spends 8.4 million on a polling company. I actually do think their site is good… they’ll build up a fantastic social graph of the users they get and the opportunities for hyper-targeted ads will be good. But 8.4 million … couldnt spend it, unless the founders have given up most their equity.
BTW … @axel rob - please stop advertising your book on here you idiot, no one on here needs your answer(s). People on here know everything.
congrats to the team at sodahead…this is well deserved and will help solidfy their position as the leading social polling a voting destination. this is easily a 500 million to 1 billion exit if executed.
These LA types I guess don’t really understand how to craft a ’seeded’ comment on a techcrunch forum.
Where is Uncov when you need it. TED - we need you back in here. Fire up the domain homie, its time to come out and slay some dragons. Start with SodaHead.
Very cool….about time someone takes the social answers space and actually delivers. I checked out the site, doesn’t look like a poll site at all…other lame widget companies can take that market, the destination site is where it’s at. Looks to me like a super forum or some sort of discussion community. Good luck, god knows the Internet needs a more organized forum or whatever the hell it calls itself.
What a great website SodaHead is, i have been a sodahead since before it launched to the public, now with this 8.4 million dollar funding it will be able to advertise more and let all those other people out there find out just how awesome this website is. More people = more improvements and many many more features to the website. Really excited about this. More people to vote on my polls and more people to discuss issues on the questions posted by SodaHeads.
for SodaHead read ShitHead
Eddie said…
More people = more improvements and many many more features to the website.
Wrong Eddie. You mean More people = More Suckers Everywhere.
As a team member on the under-funded, small (but hopefully smart) Polls Boutique, I’d like to join @Lenny in congratulating SH, and invite all of you to check out what can be done in the social polls arena with way less money, time, and west coast proximity.
Here’s a quick poll for you all, how many of these comments above are from Sodahead users or employees?
@2 (Chris):
stop telling them you have a script. its not their business. geez
@17
Welcome to the supposed ‘Web 2.0′. Investors who are stupid and dont know that a 16 year old can whip out twitter in a weekend, fully scalable and all.
Why are the quantcast numbers so far off of the comscore ones?
These guys are *quantified* which means, there is a real, 3rd party, open metric that Sodahead uses to show it’s traffic…but, comscore puts them at double what the pixel tracking service does?
Very odd…and yes, about the “bootstrapped vs VC backed” we’ve been doing “q&a” for a while now, and we’re still ahead of Sodahead, however, they’re moving fast on implementing cool stuff.
If their traffic numbers are right on quantcast, though, their users are a LOT less active than I would have guessed…our site has similar metrics to other Q&A sites, but it seems like this one is getting less real retention. I wonder why that is?
This is a huge dynamic that will only continue to add to Yahoo’s misery, a few tweaks in the operations and Sodahead will be one of the best, ive seen a few glimpses of the software and its clean, the add ons just need to be changed ever so slightly.
I have been a member of sodahead since July 2007. I am so in love with this site. It goes way beyond just a polling site, it has wonderful members and you are interacting with them as you make and answer polls. I love love love this site.
Wow… 8million eh? Poll Authority was started on a budget that’s much much less than that… about 8million less.
SodaHead looks pretty good though and does a lot of things right, so congrats to them for earning a well deserved 8million to continue with their enterprise.
For those looking for another alternative to SodaHead that is going to make some waves in the polling market, give Poll Authority a try at http://www.PollAuthority.com. A lot is planned to expand on the site (which just launched last week), so keep an eye on it. Thanks!
SodaHead did an awesome job. I am really impressed. Congratulations to both Jason and Michael.
Please try PollBag at http://pollbag.com/ This site is not as fancy as SodaHead yet, but it gets the job done.