You'll be seeing more text voting in various media as pollsters discover just how fast and inexpensive it is to reach the masses.
Of course, results aren't scientific, but as far engaging your audience and interacting with large groups of people, there is no technology that can beat text (SMS) voting.
Here are just a few examples of how text voting is being used today:

• Asking television audiences to vote for their favorite performers.
  
• Asking concert patrons to choose the music they want to hear for an encore.
  
• Asking sports fan to choose the most valuable player.
  
• Asking local news viewers to give their opinion on controversial subjects.
  
• Asking customers to rate products and services.
  

Those applications might seem quite mundane in the traditional sense of polling.
However, texting adds a new wrinkle that revolutionizes polling -- live real-time streaming results.
Media, particularly television and radio, can now poll their audiences and offer real-time result compilations.
In other words, you could be sitting at home watching television and see the voting results as they come into the station.
Results can be updated every 12 seconds and viewer responses can be streamed onto the television screen with live online data feeds.
This has never been possible before.
In this world of "instant-everything," texting with mobile phones (which 85% of the people now have) allows media, sports, cultural venues, businesses and non-profits to receive, and share, instant polling results.
Audience interaction and response can now be conducted at the speed of light and voters don't have to wait to how their opinion compares to others.
There are a number of reasons why organizations are turning to text voting.
The reasons are obvious.
Here are just some of the advantages:

• Text voting can work with just a few people, or millions.
  It is completely scalable and is flexible enough to accommodate any application.
  As long as you can get your message out, your polling results will show up on any computer with an online connection.
  
• Text voting is fast and easy, and relatively inexpensive compared to other voting methods.
  
• Nearly everyone can participate since the vast majority of adults, and teenagers, are within arm's length of a mobile cell phone.
  
• You don't need to be at a computer to vote.
  
• Text voting is "portable" and can be used in any location at any time.
  

Once you set up your text voting account, you can log online anytime to your secured website interface.
Once there, you can manage you account to do anything from collecting income votes, to sending out text blasts to people who want more information.
Moreover, you can automate a response so when someone texts a vote to you, they will instantly receive an acknowledgment message on their mobile cell phone.
The acknowledgement messages can be anything, including coupons from businesses that may be sponsoring the poll.
Overall, you'll find businesses, organizations and media, taking text polls more often as they adopt strategies that create stronger affinities with target audiences.