Automattic Asks: Who's Your PollDaddy Now?

The company behind the WordPress blogging platform has just announced their acquisition of PollDaddy. That's right, Automattic and the Web-based polling and survey company are now intertwined. Based out of Sligo, Ireland, PollDaddy offers free polls with the option to run more detailed and advanced surveys at an annual rate.Working to integrate Web-based surveys with blogs is Automattic's first priority, and they have already implemented product changes to allow for tighter integration within WordPress-hosted blogs and transitions to Automattic's data centers. PollDaddy has produced about a million polls, and 195 million votes have been collected to date -- growth that was pushing PollDaddy to the edge, according to the PollDaddy blog. Considering that the majority of their users are bloggers, and a large portion of them use WordPress, a move to Automattic seemed logical. With more than 4.4 million WordPress blogs that exist now, more surveys -- ranging from the personal to politcal -- are sure to come. Benefiting from a larger staff, PollDaddy can focus efforts on building support into as many platforms as possible, including MySpace, Ning, Blogger, TypePad, Hi5, Orkut and Piczo, among others. Starting right away, if you're using PollDaddy on your WordPress-powered blog, it will be available directly in your WordPress post editor. Soon, it will also be available to WordPress.org users as a free plugin.