Systems and methods for gathering audience measurement data

1. A method of gathering audience measurement data relating to exposure of an audience member to audio data, comprising: receiving the audio data in a user system used for reproducing audio data as sound for an audience member; encoding the audio data in the user system with audience measurement data to produce encoded audio data; reproducing the encoded audio data as encoded sound by means of the user system; receiving the encoded sound in a monitor device to produce received audio data; and decoding the audience measurement data from the received audio data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a portable monitor carried on the person of an audience member is used to decode the audience measurement data.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audio data comprises streaming media data.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audio data is obtained by the user system from the Internet and the audience measurement data indicates that the audio data was obtained from the Internet.

5. The method of claim 1 , comprising receiving in the user system audio data having first audience measurement data previously encoded therein, encoding second audience measurement data in the received audio data in the user system and decoding both the first audience measurement data and the second audience measurement data from the received audio data.

6. The method of claim 1 , comprising receiving audio data and preexisting audience measurement data separately from the audio data in the user system, and encoding the preexisting audience measurement data in the audio data in the user system.

7. The method of claim 1 , comprising encoding the audio data by means of a player application running on the user system.

8. A system for gathering audience measurement data relating to exposure of an audience member to audio data reproduced by a user system used for reproducing audio data as sound for an audience member, comprising: an encoder coupled with the user system to encode audio data which has been received in the user system with audience measurement data to produce encoded audio data; and a decoder device having an input to receive the encoded audio data for decoding the audience measurement data encoded therein.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the encoder comprises software running on the user system.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the encoder comprises an encoder device coupled with the user system.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the encoder device comprises a peripheral of the user system.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the decoder device comprises a portable monitor adapted to be carried on the person of an audience member.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein the decoder device comprises a stationary monitor.

14. The system of claim 8 , further comprising a monitor adapted to be carried on the person of an audience member to transduce encoded audio data reproduced by the user system and to communicate the transduced encoded audio data to the decoder device.

15. A method of gathering data relating to exposure of an audience member to streaming media reproduced by a user system for the audience member, comprising: receiving streaming media including audio data in a user system; encoding the audio data received in the user system with audience measurement data; reproducing the encoded audio data as encoded acoustic energy; receiving the encoded acoustic energy in a portable monitor carried on the person of an audience member; and decoding the audience measurement data in the encoded acoustic energy received in the portable monitor.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein receiving streaming media comprises receiving audio data encoded with source identification data for the streaming media, and further comprising decoding the source identification data from the acoustic energy received by the portable monitor.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein receiving streaming media comprises receiving audio data and preexisting audience measurement data separately from the audio data in the user system, and encoding the audio data comprises encoding the audio data with the preexisting audience measurement data.

18. A system for gathering audience measurement data relating to exposure of an audience member to streaming media in the form of audio data reproduced by a user system used for reproducing audio data as sound for an audience member, comprising: an encoder coupled with the user system to encode audio data which has been received in the user system as streaming media with audience measurement data and to supply the encoded audio data to be reproduced by the user system; a portable monitor adapted to be carried on the person of an audience member to transduce the encoded audio data reproduced by the user system; and a decoder coupled with the portable monitor to receive the transduced encoded audio data and to decode the audience measurement data in the transduced encoded audio data.

19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the encoder is operative to encode the audio data with preexisting audience measurement data received by the user system with the streaming media but separate from the audio data.

20. A method of gathering data relating to exposure of an audience member to streaming media, comprising: receiving streaming media in a user system, the streaming media including audio data and source identification data for the audio data and separate therefrom; encoding the audio data within the user system with the source identification data to form encoded audio data; reproducing the encoded audio data as encoded acoustic energy; receiving the encoded acoustic energy in a portable monitor carried on the person of an audience member; and decoding the source identification data encoded in the encoded acoustic energy received by the portable monitor.

21. A method for gathering audience measurement data, comprising: encoding audio data in a user system with first audience measurement data by embedding the first audience measurement data in the audio data, the user system being arranged to reproduce the audio data as sound for an audience member; and decoding the first audience measurement data in the encoded audio data.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the audio data is received in the user system having second audience measurement data previously encoded therein, the second audience measurement data being different from the first audience measurement data.

23. The method of claim 22 , wherein the second audience measurement data comprises source identification data.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein the first audience measurement data characterizes the user system.

25. The method of claim 22 , wherein the audio data comprises streaming media received via the Internet and encoded with second audience measurement data comprising source identification data.

26. The method of claim 25 , wherein the first audience measurement data indicates that the streaming media was received via the Internet.

27. The method of claim 25 , wherein the first audience measurement data indicates a type of player for the streaming media running on the user system.

28. The method of claim 21 , wherein the first audience measurement data is decoded in a monitor carried on the person of an audience member.

29. The method of claim 21 , further comprising transducing the reproduced sound in a monitor carried on the person of an audience member to produce transduced sound, communicating the transduced sound to a decoding device from the monitor and decoding the first audience measurement data from the transduced sound in the decoding device.

30. The method of claim 21 , further comprising transducing the reproduced sound and decoding the first audience measurement data in a stationary monitoring device.