Collect information online using the Google Docs "Forms" feature

You can create easy to manage forms and polls using Google Docs. If you're not familiar with Docs, check it out at http://docs.google.com

If you are familiar with Google Docs, then go to the main page and select Create New > Form from the drop down menu and then get started building your form or survey. 

It's really easy to work with and you can have everything from required date fields (like name, address, etc.) to multiple choice check-boxes and select from list kind of questions.  There are multiple pre-made templates in the templates section for you to use.  Things like "Contact Us" website form, survey templates, questionnaires, invoice tracking, and more.


When you're done creating your form, you can email your form to your Gmail contacts, or link to an online version of the form through a website, blog or email. Where does the info go? Into a Google Docs spreadsheet where it can be exported and opened in Excel if you want or you can have the results emailed to you.  There is even an experimental response summary that displays little graphs of your results.


What are some of your favorite online information gathering tools?