Katie Fehrenbacher of GigaOM posted a note today about Embrace, a UK-based mobile survey startup that has recently introduced MSurvey, a service for running questionnaires via cell phones. Embrace’s mobile solution is particularly useful for conducting very short surveys such as opinion polls, customer satisfaction surveys, employee satisfaction surveys, and ad hoc market research.

To maximize response rates, Embrace can collect data through three different method:

• SMS surveys: universally accessible from all types of mobile phones, allow for reverse billing (so your users don’t have to pay to take your surveys) but can only accomodate a limited number of question types;
• Phone Web Browser: Most new cell phones have this capability; surveys can be branded, and a range of question types are available.
• Downloadable application: Survey can be downloaded to the user’s phone and the survey can be completed when the user is out of signal area (like downloading a game to your cell phone).

Data can then downloadable in the Survey Interchange Standard format or XML.

Read Katie’s article at GigaOM.
Read more at the Embrace web site.