We got a tip that Facebook Polls, the social networking service’s business tool that enabled anyone to create a paid poll targetting a pre-defined group of users, is no longer available. The link that used to redirect to the service is now effectively forwarded to the Facebook homepage, and you won’t find any reference of Facebook Polls anywhere on the company’s business or advertising pages. What happened?
Update: Facebook has acknowledged putting Facebook Polls on hold following a technical migration last October which raised some questions internally about the priority for the product. They advise users to switch to one of the many polling applications available on the service.
Statement:
“The ability to create Facebook Polls is no longer available on the public site, though users may still receive Facebook Polls created internally by Facebook. Facebook is exploring options for making a polling product publicly available again in the future but has no definite plans to discuss at this point.”
When Facebook Polls launched back in June 2007, we called it a dream product for brand marketers and market researchers. Users could create a poll and target users based gender, age, location or profile keyword. Facebook charged a variable fee based on how quickly you wanted results, and based on how many results you wanted and how much you were wiling to pay per result. Prices ranged from $.10 to $1.00 per data point, plus an initial $5 insertion fee, and the polls appeared in Facebook users’ news feed so more people could become aware of the service.
Back then, Facebook had only 20+ million users on the social network – it has more than six times that amount today – and Polls seemed like a great way to monetize the appeal and engagement of Facebook’s user based on demographics. On the other hand, there was some criticism regarding the pricing and the fact that Facebook Polls delivered statistically insignificant results.
Anyone care to take a wild guess why they decided to pull the service?
(I have contacted Facebook PR and will update this post if and when I get word back.)
because we sued them back
There has been no specific announcment. And polls is a great option too. So, I would assume that the polls have been temporarily pulled and shall be resumed with an even better offering or pricing model.
That is actually one possibility… :\ Or maybe it was one of the things that was drawing the most criticisms from the users…
I thought you weren’t supposed to publicly talk about ongoing litigation.
That comment was directed at the Power.com CEO, if that’s actually him. If not, you should probably trash the comment, Robin.
we no fear da law
The new site design is horrible. The front page looks like a giant advertisement, and the three column layout is muddled. There is nothing wrong with trying to make a buck, but I guarantee you that new readers will not respond well to the design. If I was a first time reader I would probably leave the page immediately. It just feels like spam.
I read in Google Reader anyway, the design’s fine anyway – you can read it can’t you?
Design is more than about ‘reading’ but obviously you have no concept of good design…
The redesign is horrendous, more cluttered, less organized and ad filled – congrats.
Oh and way to try to be like Gawker with the box’d headlines at the top lol – real original.
This new design is HORRIBLE!!! It makes Techcrunch look like a SPAM-filled and ad-filled website.
What’s up with boxed headlines at the top???
Agreed. The previous design had a sense of openness and clarity while this new design can be described at best as claustrophobic or at worst as jaw-droppingly awful.
I liked the old design better too, but it’s actually easier to navigate the site with the new design.
Maybe all the free polling software applications that don’t charge a thing?
I didn’t even know you could do polls!
probably because they have better things to devote resources to right now.
Such an insightful comment and no link to your website? Are you new?
http://groups.im/ here is my site for you wowsers
No idea!! But I thought it was a great idea, and filled out a couple myself. One was about using Twitter!
Why don´t you ask the Facebook team, Robin? Aren´t you a blog journalist? Without a comment from Facebook, this seems like a sloppy post from a site like TechCrunch. It´s more about information and story than about comments, in my opinion. You´d most likely get a higher quality in the comment-conversation if the information in your post was better.
Good point. But, that last sentence reads like he ‘already’ knows the answer….
Amen, ninanord. I liked TC a lot better then it followed through rather than attempt to encourage further [inaccurate?] speculation in the comments.
(And Rich, I’d argue that if Robin did know the answer, this is very sloppy journalism. That said, I don’t know Robin at all, but I’m pretty sure that Robin doesn’t.)
WTF is wrong with you people? You do not know the difference between a blogger and journalist?
There is obviously a story here whether or not the explanation is currently known.
These z-list blogger folk and twitter blow-hards need a giant dose of STFU!
Fucking complainers need to whine in email rather than clogging the comments with this crap.
Sorry to disappoint you, Phil, but I had a line in the previous comment that I decided to remove before I hit post. However, I’m adding it back just for you. Here it is:
“Would Mike have published this post as is?”
Further, I had a short little blurb on the difference between blogger and journalist but decided to avoid the nuances because my issue of contention was that the last line was inviting speculation instead of actually giving us a definitive answer.
I’ll leave it at that. Like I said in my earlier comment, “I liked TC a lot better when it followed through.” In other words, once upon a time, it did.
Yup, clearly because I am looking forward to the same investigative reporting that I am used to on TechCrunch and expressed my dissatisfaction for not seeing that here, I am a z-list blogger. You might want to do your due diligence.
I don’t know the answer, I have contacted Facebook PR, and will update if and when they get back to me. It was 3 AM on a Saturday night in San Francisco when I wrote this, I waited a bit but can’t expect them to respond to queries 24/24.
If anything, it’s sloppy corporate communication at Facebook’s end, since there was no official word on the service shutting down (even if only temporarily).
And I won’t apologize for engaging readers and asking for their opinions.
I think fair reporting.
News – FB shut down what appeared to be a useful service with no explanation.
TC merely asked readers for any explanation for the shutdown. I think that’s TC at its best.
With respect to the new TC design, I agree with anon, although it might just take time to get used to.
Robin, you don’t need to apologize as you did nothing wrong. The issue is more that a few of us expect a little more from TechCrunch given that it usually delivers thorough written editorial. Thus, if you put this on your own blog, sure, I’d have no problem with the article as-is. But I suppose when you do so under the TC name, there’s a different type of expectation on behalf of the reader. After all, with pieces like this, you do expect TC to be put to a higher standard.
My $0.02.
Yeah, but what about the one-word post from Arrington: “Twitter”? Or the Digg Acquisition rumors? I have seen so many posts here that aren’t complete when first posted (but are updated later) I couldn’t begin to start listing them.
Also, you may have noticed the update?
Get a grip.
Phil, I saw the update and I still felt the need to respond to you and clarify my stance from the EARLIER comment. Hope that’s okay by you.
Isn’t FB full of those apps?
Yes, there are a bunch, but FB Polls was one of Facebook’s proprietary, revenue-generating services.
Weird indeed – looked like one of their most likely paths to cash… how odd.
I think they are trying to tell us that they are not poor http://groups.im/
I think that it is pretty clear at this point that Facebook does not care about making money.
Polls and surveys best serve the purpose when the desired audience is targeted. The results might not have been giving scientifically correlated results.
“Anyone care to take a wild guess why they decided to pull the service?”
Where’s TC’s investigative reporting? Why not get a comment from someone at Facebook?
Yet another facebook business model bites the dust. What IS generating money for micosoft and the gang?
IDK about others, but I never even noticed Facebook polls. I think too few people were using them and thus it wasn’t really necessary for Facebook to keep supporting them.
“Yet another facebook business model bites the dust. What IS generating money for micosoft and the gang?”
My take: FB could charge sites using FB Connect. FB Connect is valuable because it can almost guarantee that a real person is signing up – no spam and added visibility on FB for the site. FB could easily detect fake accounts and exclude those from FB Connect. It could also charge based on how active a user is. Of course, it’s not clear whether sites like TC would be willing to pay for this. But I believe FB is in a unique position to verify that an account is real.
@Anon, I feel the same way, it’s just horrible to read. People please solve this, this page doesn’t look good.
PROTIP: “Reply” links are green.
It could have something to do with Europe. European regulations stipulate that private information about an individual (their gender, age, religion, and sexual preference) requires legal approval from the individual before being released to marketers.
These regulations harken back to World War II and the many war crimes committed against different socio-ethnic groups.
Facebook is becoming more and more popular in Europe, and now they are suing a copycat German networking site. Pulling the polls may be a way to strengthen their European position and popularity.
Just a guess…
How are some people so hostile with their comments? It’s only fucking news and opinion. (Now I’m hostile, great)
It’s the internet. This will explain all: http://is.gd/1WNz
did you know that URL shorteners are useful for places with limited text fields like twitter, but on blogs it just annoying?
why do people do this?
the twittards think URL shorts are the only way to link now
Does anybody have an idea of how much money they were really making from the polls?
I wouldn’t be surprised if too few people were using them. I had actually forgotten that Facebook offered them, since I never see them in my own News Feed. Maybe too many people like me with AdBlock who just never see the polls.
Unless you’re trying to use polls to drive traffic, Facebook polls are pretty much useless. Market researchers want to be able to ask more than one multiple choice question, and they want to be able to explore the reasons behind the answers.
I think Facebook could have a bang-up panels business that pays way more than their ads, but if they want to drive it through the polls tool, they will not succeed.
Polls or not, facebook is cool. Hey you can create facebook avatars with your own face at http://www.trutoon.com/
Typically, when something is pulled quickly and quietly like this, it means no one was really using it and it was just a drain on the servers and resources. Most of the time anyway.
My take?
I think its because people who used the polls were learning more about the people who filled them in than Facebook could have done themselves.
I think the manifestation of this would have been a trend toward advertisers using polls rather than advertising on Facebook.
Ultimately, the revenue from the polls couldn’t supplant the lost revenue from advertising so although the service was great for the poll users – it was a bad commercial decision for Facebook.
AND/OR
Facebook realised that learning about what people want is critical to the future of communication and it was actually THEY who should be running the polls not others.
However – I would say that everyone should be able to use the polls system non-exclusively and my commercial model would be to charge for setting up a poll AND for access to the results AND a premium product for the analysis of them.
Lets see if my theory comes to fruition.
2/3 of your theory on a commercial model were already part of the product. can’t you read?
“Prices ranged from $.10 to $1.00 per data point, plus an initial $5 insertion fee…”
Frank,
Yes, I can read.
Firstly, I suggested that the money charged cannot replace loss of revenue from advertising and secondly, I suggested that a commercial model could augment to add in premium services such as analysis.
“Anyone care to take a wild guess why they decided to pull the service?”
Why not poll it?
a) Not making enough money / using too many resources
b) to be overhauled for new improved version
I wonder if they closed the polling because the results weren’t scientific.
I have heard from some that Facebook was becoming ‘intrusive’. Polls (and other third party applications) are seen as too commercial, like uninvited, awkward guests at a party whipping out their business cards. In search of revenue and profit, Facebook still hasn’t been able to balance its desire to make money (and the best means to achieve that), and the users’ wish to use Facebook as a social and personal(ized) tool.
Please note: I have not conducted any statistically viable polls and the comment above reflects a very limited number of views sampled …
Facebook pulls polls because users in their China’s copycat Kaixin001.com or Xiaonie.com’s are using polls tremendously to see what their friends are doing.
Users in Kaixin001.com would ask their friends about a problem in the poll and see how their friends would choose.
The amount of poll done in a day can be millions.
I am sure Facebook was questioning why their copycat are smarter in utililizing a social network than their own. So they decided to copy their copycat.
The hull is rusted through. Taking on water. Crew is quietly bailing below decks. Don’t let the passengers know.
Oh snap, Tamar. Heh.
I think since the forced demise of Beacon, Facebook has been working for a long time on another, more elaborate way to cater to the business community beyond the Ads & Pages offerings.
My guess is that the only reason to pull down polls would be that they’re developing a competing yet more sophisticated and better-monetized tool that serves a similar purpose but is, well, much better all around.
But then again, I may just be putting too much faith in the Zuckerberg camp.
they should do a poll as to whether or not people like the polls feature!!!
I have had trouble buying media for polls. Does anyone have information experienced the same thing about facebook rejecting that type of media?
This is old news. I’ve been pulling my pole while browsing Facebook for months now.
I think that Facebook is just doing informal polling by tagging your accounts and tracking your comments.
Seems strange to me since it had potential for market researchers… Maybe they’re just scaling back to focus on a few things in the short-term, and will bring it back later on?