Software995 Inc. announced free persistent article polls for participating publishers, expanding ThinkMatch's publisher tools from local event discovery and Article Roundtables into a new article-native reader feedback experience.
When an authorized publication registers an article with ThinkMatch, artificial intelligence can draft a balanced set of questions grounded in the article's subject. Publication staff can review, edit, reorder, publish, hide, or replace those questions from their publisher workspace. Nothing appears to readers until a complete question set has been published.
The reader poll presents five choice-based questions one at a time, including single-choice, multiple-answer, and ranked questions. Readers must complete each question—and explicitly accept the order of a ranked answer—before continuing. After submitting the complete poll, they immediately see aggregate results from other readers.
Readers do not need to create a ThinkMatch account to answer an article poll. Poll answers are informal reader feedback, are not presented as a scientific survey, and are not added to a reader's ThinkMatch profile or matching data.
The questionnaires are persistent article content. They remain associated with the publication's canonical article even when no local Roundtable is active, so an enduring story does not lose its questions and results merely because a temporary event has ended.
Many publisher engagement products end with an embedded poll, quiz, or analytics report. ThinkMatch is designed to carry reader interest further. After viewing the results, a reader can continue to a public article discussion or start or find a small local Roundtable about the same reporting when those publisher-controlled features are enabled.
That broader path is what can make ThinkMatch a better fit than a conventional polling widget for publishers that want participation rather than another isolated content block. One integration can move a reader from the article, to a considered response, to the views of other readers, to moderated public conversation, and ultimately to a real local gathering—all while preserving the original publication and article as the source.
The service is currently offered free to participating publishers. There is no subscription or per-response charge for the article poll, and readers are not placed behind an account wall simply to vote and see results. Publisher access is granted and configured by ThinkMatch administrators so the feature is limited to approved publication domains and can be enabled independently from message boards and Roundtables.
Article polls complement ThinkMatch's existing free publisher tools, including publication-branded community event pages, embeddable local event listings, moderated reader event submissions, public article message boards, and Article Roundtables. Publishers can use only the reader poll or combine it with the broader set of community features.
"A poll should do more than add a click to an article," said Scott Rothstein, Architect at Software995 Inc. "ThinkMatch helps a publisher turn careful reading into a visible range of opinion, then gives readers a path to discuss the result and, when it makes sense, meet locally around the reporting. We are offering that complete path free to participating publishers."
About ThinkMatch
ThinkMatch is a common-ground-first platform built to change how people meet in real life. People can begin with a topic, story, event, or other shared interest, then find or create a small local Roundtable around it. Guests can answer event-specific questions, and ThinkMatch uses their responses to support more thoughtful introductions, compatible groups, conversation starters, private chat, and optional video before people meet in person. Hosts can also create free public or private events for parties, meetings, campus activities, conventions, community gatherings, and other real-world occasions. ThinkMatch's goal is to make meeting new people feel easier, warmer, and more intentional by giving people a meaningful reason to talk before they walk into the room.
About Software995 Inc.
Software995 Inc. is a Palo Alto, California-based software company best known for Pdf995, the long-running PDF creation and document publishing suite with more than 50 million installations and millions of enterprise users worldwide. For more than 20 years, Software995 has built practical, affordable software for document creation, conversion, security, search, backup, FTP, imaging, and workflow productivity. The company's newer products include ThinkMatch, a platform for real-world introductions, events, matching, invitations, chat, video, and group discovery, and SearchWithin, a survey experience that helps people understand themselves through feedback from the people around them.
Media Contact
Scott Rothstein, Architect
Software995 Inc.
[email protected]