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Welcome to the fourth issue of Ask500People Weekly, a digest of Ask500People news, featured questions, and cool comments. Here’s what’s up this week!

Stumbling Towards Geekery

One of the many fun ways that people discover Ask500People is through the StumbleUpon social bookmarking service. StumbleUpon also taps the “wisdom of crowds” to find interesting destinations on the web. Click “Stumble!” and, while you never know where you’ll end up, you’ll almost always find something great.

Check out our StumbleUpon page, and if you’re a StumbleUpon user, share your thoughts on our site and help others stumble across it, too!

Notable Polls

waugs asked: “In your life, which do you regret more?” Over 700 people voted:

• Something you did: 37%
• Something you did not do: 63%

PhxMike (in the United States) commented: “Absolutely the things I did not do. Even the things I thought
I regretted at the time, long term, ended up to be good.”

LaRousse5 asked: “When was the last time you spoke to your mother?” Over 730 people voted:

• Today or yesterday: 58%
• Within the past week: 17%
• Within the past two months: 10%
• Longer than two months ago: 15%

Vieffan (in the Netherlands) commented: “Within the past two months. But that’s just because she is on
vacation. usually I speak to her every day.”

sarah_may asked: “Have you ever been on TV?“Over 720 people voted:

• Yes: 44%
• No: 56%

Hauli (in Canada) commented: “I was the anchor and an interviewer of a weekly news magazine show. It was primarily a current affairs and general interest show. I did this at the same time as hosting the afternoon show at a radio station.”

laika1651 asked: “Where do you obtain your music?” Over 480 people voted:

• High Street Retail: 23%
• Online Physical Purchase: 26%
• Online MP3 Shop: 32%
• Illegally: 19%

Ask001 commented: “In Canada, downloading for personal use is (still) legal. For that privilege we pay a tax on recording media. On a side note, even though I can download a full CD in less time than it takes me to buy one, I still buy more than I download.”

WishingForSun asked: “Do you have health coverage?” Over 540 people voted:

• Yes: 68%
• No: 32%

annecm (in New Zealand) commented: “Nope. Don’t need it here.”

suzannabanana1 asked: “How many years of education do you have?” Over 400 people voted:

• I have a high school diploma: 72%
• I have some college: 34%
• I have a BA, BS, MA or PhD: 42%
• I didn’t graduate from high school: 6%

Chipmonk (in the United States) commented: “Every year I’m alive is another year of education.”

Happy Asking!

Have something you’d like to Ask 500 People? It’s as simple as clicking here. Find a question that made you go hmm? Read a comment that made you LOL? Let us know and we could feature it in the next Ask500People Weekly!  And if you’re not signed up to receive the Ask500People Weekly email newsletter, it’s not too late. Just check the box for “”Best of Ask500″ in your profile.

On the PBS series scienceNOW (out of WGBH in Boston), a recent episode featured a segment on “Wisdom of the Crowds.” As you might guess, it’s a topic near and dear to our hearts. So we were especially tickled to find Ask500People linked as a resource on the scienceNOW website… sandwiched between the James Surowiecki book that inspired us and the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT.

Curious about what scienceNOW had to say about “Wisdom of the Crowds”? You can watch the segment online.

Welcome to the second issue of Ask500People Weekly, a digest of Ask500People news, featured questions, and cool comments. Here’s what’s up this week!

Better Blog Embeds

We recently announced a new-and-improved embeddable poll, allowing you to post and share polls on your blogs and websites. Well, we’ve improved them even further, making them more compatible with people using WordPress for their blogs. If you haven’t yet tried it, you should! It’s a great way to add interactivity and activity to your site.

Notable Polls

source asked: “Is there such a thing as a soul mate? Does everyone have just one true love?” Over 300 people voted:

• A. Yes: 55%
• B. No: 45%

yolda commented: “This are two questions, which I would answer one with yes one with no, for example. I believe in soul mates, which can be more than one, and I believe that one can have more than just one true love.”

ChipMonk asks: “Do you have a valid library card? If so, do you use it at least once a year?” Nearly 500 people voted:

• A. Yes (I have a valid library card): 22%
• B. Yes (and I use it at least once a year): 37%
• C. No (I do not have a valid library card): 41%

Hauli commented: “I use the library all the time. For new releases or any book that isn’t on the shelf, I can order online and they email me when the book is in for pick up.”

Vieffan asked: “Do you consider yourself old?” Over 400 people voted:

• A. Yes: 23%
• B. No: 77%

Ross commented: “I’m a hell of a lot closer to seventy than sixty five and whilst I like to think I’m not old, just oldish, I have to admit there are a lot of things I can’t do as well as I once could. But old? No. Not yet.”

Maeycken asked: “Do you know your neighbours?” Nearly 500 people voted:

• A. Yes: 67%
• B. No: 33%

PhxMike commented: “I live in a historic neighborhood, with a great deal of cultural diversity. Always fascinating, and everyone watches out for one another. We have several Sikh families, Hispanic families, gay & lesbian couples, a French couple next door, several elderly couples, and a pot smoker across the street.”

Happy Asking!

Have something you’d like to Ask 500 People? It’s as simple as clicking here. Find a question that made you go hmm? Read a comment that made you LOL? Let us know and we could feature it in the next Ask500People Weekly! And if you’re not signed up to receive the Ask500People Weekly email newsletter, it’s not too late. Just check the box for “”Best of Ask500″ in your profile.

Welcome to the first Ask500People Weekly, a digest of Ask500People news, notable polls, and cool comments. In addition to unveiling the new “Edit Your Location” feature, we turned the spotlight on a handful of questions:

Chipmonk asked: “Does intelligence help a person to have faith in the supernatural, or hinder the ability to have faith in the supernatural?” About 400 people voted:

•   A. Help: 39%
•   B. Hinder: 61%

And SpangeNW commented: “I don’t know either way. Some of history’s greatest thinkers and scientists were also learned theologians and Isaac Newton was known to be a mystic.”

stoplookingatme asked: “You, on an uninhabited island with one comfort…“Over 300 people voted:

•   A case of toilet paper: 22%
•   A spirograph: 9%
•   An mp3 player with 70’s hits (Solar charger included): 40%
•   A cat named “Rocco”: 28%

waugs commented: “Music. Got to have it. I can wash in the ocean. I can draw on the sand. Maybe I can train a crab to be a pet. I’ll even name him Rocco.”

mclinton0026 asked: “What do you prefer?” Over 400 people voted:

•   Kissing: 23%
•   Hugging: 19%
•   Neither: 9%
•   Both: 48%

And Fewill asked: “Which flavor would you give up last?” Over 400 people voted:

•   Chocolate: 47%
•   Strawberry: 19%
•   Amaretto: 13%
•   Coffee: 22%

Have something you’d like to Ask 500 People? It’s as simple as clicking here!

Find a question that made you go hmm? Read a comment that made you LOL? Let us know and we could feature it in the next Ask500People Weekly!  And if you’re not signed up to receive the Ask500People Weekly email newsletter, it’s not too late. Just check the box for “”Best of Ask500″ in your profile.

We’re quite proud of our vote maps, which show where in the world people are voting on polls. But since our maps usually determine locations based on IP addresses, you sometimes saw your pin drop in the wrong place. After all, your Internet Service Provider could be located across town… or across the border.

Well, say goodbye to perplexing pin placement. You can now edit your location as part of your profile.

This is one of our most-requested features, and we’re happy to help make sure your votes are mapped to where you are.

With great power comes great responsibility, however. Edit your location wisely, as you’ll only be able to change it three times.

The community that has grown around the Ask500People site is amazing, and continues to impress us with its wit and passion. Still, one of the first goals of Ask500People was to make it easy for you to post and share polls on your blogs and websites. You can get answers from your readers and visitors, as well as from the Ask500People community and network (adding a nice touch of interactivity and activity).  We also know that you might like to tell your friends about Ask500People… but it’s even better to show them.

Enter our new-and-improved “Embed” feature for Ask500People polls.

While we’ve had embeddable polls for a while, this upgraded version is copy-and-paste easy. No jargony API key required! Just put the code provided into your blog post or web page and it’s live. Now it’s easier than ever to share your poll — or any poll— anywhere on the web, vote map and quick results included!

Of course, we still have the simpler and smaller sidebar widget available for every question. And if you just want to automatically show the latest Ask500People poll, there’s a widget for that, too! Finally, if you want to do even more with Ask500People polls, check out the Ask500People API.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments… or just vote in the poll!

We’re quite fond of our Ask500People rocket logo, which helps us launch every new question… but we never expected that we’d ever be able to hold and cuddle with it. Now, thanks to the talented Carlos Urreta, we can!

Carlos presented Ask500People founder Aaron with this delightful, hand-made plush rocket at a recent geek meetup in Honolulu.

Too cool. Thanks, Carlos!

Just yesterday we said we were “closing in on 500 votes,” and as the perfect cherry on top of this week’s upgrade sundae, Ask500People saw its first 500-vote question answered. User cleve from Bosnia and Herzegovina asked, “How old are you?” And to date, 517 people answered.  (So far, 60 percent of the voters are between 20 and 39 years of age.)  Thanks to everyone for helping us grow into our name!

Aloha! Time for an update on what’s new around here!

First of all we’d like to welcome Ryan Ozawa to the Ask500People team. He’ll be updating the blog, replying to your questions or suggestions, and working to improve the user experience at the site. More about Ryan.

SITE IMPROVEMENTS

Questions are getting more votes. When we launched each question received 100 responses. As our community has grown and we’ve made it easier to vote the number of responses has risen, and we’re closing in on 500 votes.

We now send traffic to your site. On your profile page you can add your url and site name. We’ll link to you prominently above all of your questions, including the home page.

Faster load times. We’ve implemented several major fixes, especially for users of Internet Explorer 6 to speed up the site. If Ask500People.com felt slow before please give it another try.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BEST CONTENT

1. We now have an RSS feed for question results.

2. Email: We’ll send out a weekly email with our best and most active questions, notable comments, what we’re working on and other community news. Look for an email from us this week with a link to subscribe.

3. Twitter: Follow @ask500 to see the best questions on the site as they go live, and click right through to vote! When we reach 5,000 Twitter followers, we’ll randomly select someone to win a Nintendo Wii. Then we’ll choose 10 other followers to receive an Ask500People T-shirt!

FREE STICKERS

We’ve printed Ask500People stickers featuring our trusty rocket. Want a sticker for your laptop? Your bumper? Your forehead? Send an email to with your username. You need to have created at least one question to get some stickers!

PROGRAMMING API

Developers can now use our polls within their sites and applications via the programming API. The possibilities are endless, and we’re very interested in hearing how people might be able to tap the Ask500People engine. If you have any questions, please get in touch. More info.

That’s it. Your feedback is welcome and hope to see you around the site!

We’re thrilled to announce that Ryan Ozawa is joining the Ask500People team. He’ll keep you updated with all the new features we’re rolling out and getting your input into what you’d like to see next.

About Ryan: Ryan grew up in Hawaii where he picked up a B.A. in journalism before jumping into the local tech scene. Along with experiments in lifecasting he produces and co-hosts the hugely successful LOST podcast “The Transmission” with his lovely wife Jen, with whom he has also produced (and continues to co-host) three wonderful children.

Please join us in welcoming him!