Television just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I used to be content to put my feet up, turn on the tube and let the day pass by. Not anymore. It’s not that television isn’t entertaining; it’s just not entertaining enough. I’m not alone. A current study by Razorfish spotlights an emerging trend - 80% of respondents report using a Web-enabled phone during the course of watching television programming. Why not make the most of this second-screen?

That’s where TwitPolls comes in. If you are watching a basketball game and simultaneously reading the banter between fans of both teams on Twitter, now you can engage a step further. When the @NBA posts a tweet “Think Rondo will get a triple-double? #Yes #No”, fans can reply to this tweet inside of Twitter with the hashtag of their answer. TwitPolls does the rest. Using Twitter’s API, it scans the fan responses, tallies the results and presents fancy charts and graphs to participants in real-time.

The beauty of this service is its simplicity. Most polling services require a user to click a link from Twitter which links to a new website. If you are on a mobile device, this can be a dead-end. By keeping the polls, market research or game questions inside Twitter, users stay engaged without the headaches of navigating to multiple websites and applications.

The core service of the TwitPolls is free. Anyone can post a poll to their Twitter followers and view real-time results free of charge. Enterprises that want additional functionality such as leaderboards, additional games or customized charts & graphs can speak with a company rep for details on how to make it happen. To be added to the beta-launch list or to speak with a company rep, visit TwitPolls.com.