Patent ID: 8677386

Claim:
A method of gathering feedback regarding multimedia content that is distributed to equipment of a plurality of end users over a communications network, the method comprising: receiving at a network device data sent over the communications network, the data comprising audio-visual cues captured at a set top box during presentation of a multimedia content item to provide one of real-time or near real-time feedback regarding end user reaction to the multimedia content item, the feedback being from an end user of the plurality of end users, the data being obtained passively without alerting the end user that end user reactions are being monitored and without the end user performing an action to proactively identify the feedback in the data , wherein the feedback comprises audible feedback of the end user reaction to the multimedia content item; processing the audio-visual cues at one of the network device or the set top box by identifying the feedback and by measuring the audio-visual cues based on an intensity and a duration of the feedback, wherein identifying of the feedback comprises detecting speech without using speech recognition; temporally correlating the feedback identified from the processing of the audio-visual cues with the multimedia content item; and generating, for the multimedia content item, a continuous ratings profile based on the temporally correlating of the feedback.