Free Survey Tool ... Google Forms

Many businesses fail to employ their most valuable consultants ... their customers. Other businesses thrive because they strive for continual improvement by asking their customers how the products or services might be improved.

And there are some good tools out there to help facilitate that kind of feedback.

Enter Google Forms.

The Form option used to be buried in the Sharing menu in Google Spreadsheets, but recently, Google made it a lot easier to get started. Now Form is it's own object alongside Documents, Presentations, and Spreadsheets.Building the form is very intuitive. You can choose from Text, Paragraph text, Multiple choice, Checkboxes, Choose from a list, and Scale (1-n). See example:

You can create a link to the form, embed the form on a webpage, or even embed it in an email. (only works with certain email clients)

After you finish building the form and you have some submissions, you can see the responses in the spreadsheet-like view or in the graphical view:

Unlike Zoomerang and other non-free options, you cannot make the form change based on the customers previous answers, but most people don't need that option anyway.

Google Forms is free and easy to use (like the rest of the Google Office Suite), and can be used for a myriad of research applications as well as for customer feedback. All you need to get started is a Google account, which can be set up with or without a GMail account.

Now you know,

Garrett Woodroof

Google Mobile App for Blackberry

Yesterday, Google came out with "Google Mobile App", a conglomeration of GMail, Maps, Calendar, Reader, Documents, News, Photos, Notebook, Sync, and Search for Blackberry users. 

Pros:

• Google services are easily accessed and organized
  
• Search suggestions
  
• No waiting for search box to load
  
• Icon strip is customizable
  
• It makes phone books even more obsolete

Cons:

• Uses your default browser (It's almost just a Google Bookmarks folder)
• GMail froze up on me when I tried to open it
  
• Doesn't replace GMail, Maps, Sync
• Doesn't link up to Google Talk
• Doesn't link up with Grand Central
  
• Same ol' clunky spreadsheet interface

Ultimately, it could be a lot more polished and/or slick, but I'm glad to see Google put this together for the Blackberry. It's smart for Google largely beause it helps contribute to the feeling that any time I'm looking for data (email, maps, pics, rss, etc) I simply need to "go to Google" to get it. I hope that this service grouping is opened up to the iphone soon. 

If you're a Blackberry user, try it out for yourself. Keep in mind that it doesn't replace GMail, Maps, or Sync; it merely links to them. Therefore, do not uninstall GMail, Sync, and Maps (like I did) because you'll just have to reinstall them later.

To install "Google Mobile App" go to http://m.google.com from your Blackberry Web Browser. 

Now you know, 

Garrett Woodroof

Google PhoneBook

In the spirit of "organizing the worlds' information", Google has come out with the "Google PhoneBook". I don't know how long it's been around, but I just stumbled upon it this morning.

It seems to aggregate the information from other tools such as Anywho, Switchboard, and the rest in their list HERE.

It works pretty well, and the best part is, there are no ads inviting me to pay $30 for a background check! 

What other little-known Google services are out there? Please share in the comments.

Google PhoneBook

Now you know, 

Garrett Woodroof

BTW: That was my phone number up until I moved recently. 

Google Web Browser: Chrome

Google seems to be developing its own web browser which it has named "Chrome". This news came via an unofficial Google blog, Blogoscoped. The article links to a 38 page, comic book style introduction to Google Chrome (here). Here's what I gleaned from the intro:

• Open-source
• Designed for web apps
• Stronger JavaScript support (V8 virtual machine)
  
• "Webkit" rendering engine (same as Safari)
  
• Tabbed interface
• Separate process per tab (think Task Manager)
  
• Separate URL box per tab, called "Omnibox", is similar to Firefox's "Awesome Bar"
  
• It "more stable" (according to Google)
• Google Gears support built in
• "Incognito" tab doesn't save any info once it's closed
• Sandboxing prevents unauthorized hard drive reading and writing

I can hardly wait to start trying it out. More powerful browsers mean more useful web-based services.

So here's my question ... what's going to happen to Mozilla? If Google Chrome is as good as its intro. Will it replace Firefox? And if it doesn't replace Firefox, will Google continue to pay Mozilla millions of dollars to be the default search provider in Firefox (85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from this agreement - source)?

Google Chrome (Intro)
Google Chrome (Blogoscoped post)

Now you know,
Garrett Woodroof

UPDATE: Only one day after the previous info leaked, Google released Chrome and it can be downloaded here.