Since we launched ClearPoll on August 31, we’ve processed a lot of feedback and done a lot of analysis of who, how and why people are installing ClearPoll. Perhaps more importantly, why they might decide not to.

We’ve already had well over 6,000 installs, which is a solid start. But we’ve identified a potential roadblock that may be limiting our ability to really “catch fire”.

As you know, one of ClearPoll’s benefits is limiting multiple votes and bot votes. To help achieve this, we require account creation and mobile sms verification. This has been working fine, for those willing to go through the process (which really only takes a few seconds). We’ve discovered that despite being a very simple process, many people, the majority of people, just simply can’t be bothered. They see a link to a poll, they want to vote, they aren’t logged in and so they leave. Even though they need to create the account only one time, and stay logged in forever, it is still proving to be a step that is limiting our ability to grow our user base. We’ve also noticed a few people revert back to Twitter polls because they’d rather get 1,000 low quality votes than 200 votes from real users. Rather than complain about this, we will do what we always do — adapt. If we didn’t make an adjustment, it is likely we would tick along at the same rate we are now, for years to come. Whilst that would be “ok”, we want more.

So, allow us to roll out a new feature to tackle this roadblock. We want to open up voting to everyone. No account needed. Don’t panic, let me explain…

You will soon be able to choose to open up your polls to anyone, or limit to registered users only. It’s totally up to you whether you value the quality of the votes, or just want as many as possible.

An option to choose to open voting up to everyone.

Why are we doing this? Well, we want to see more people using ClearPoll. We want it to be the standard — the polling option you keep seeing everywhere. If we make it dead simple to vote, plus show related polls to all visitors and allow them to keep voting and exploring the platform, we have a great chance at growing quickly. Right now, the only disadvantage there is to using ClearPoll rather than Twitter or other polls, is the requirement to have an account to vote. If we take that away, we will absolutely see an uptick in votes, social sharing and general “buzz” and brand awareness.

There are some obvious things to consider.

Firstly, regarding rewards for votes your polls receive, you will still only receive points from votes from registered users. This is a must, because we are fully aware people will find ways to multiple vote, if they don’t have an account. They will probably also set up bot voting, as they do with other polling platforms. There shouldn’t be any reward for votes from unregistered users, it’s just too difficult to stop someone gaming the system without an account.

So, if there will be multiple votes and bot votes, shouldn’t we just ignore the results entirely? No. We will give you a simple option to view votes from registered users only. This will make it stand out when unregistered votes were manipulated. So, even if you choose to open up voting to anyone, you can still see the good quality results from registered users.

You can show or hide unregistered votes.

Lastly, sponsored polls (the important ones such as the Scottish Independence poll) will be registered users only. This is the only way to control the quality, plus provide valuable insights into age, gender etc.

So in summary, it will be totally up to YOU if you want to open up your poll to all users online. And even if you do, you can always view the isolated “registered user” results. Every poll type (standard poll, featured poll and ratings bars) will have the option of “anyone can vote”.

This is going to help ClearPoll to grow, which is what we all want. Once we are established as a known platform, more users will register because they want to create a poll or earn rewards. More users, also means more revenue, which means more rewards going back to you, the user.

We’ve done a lot of learning since launch and we are confident this adjustment will have an overwhelmingly positive outcome.

There are other improvements and adjustments we will continue to work on.

Thanks for your continued support and patience!

– ClearPoll Team