Abstract: Embodiments of a method are disclosed that comprise receiving, over a communications network, user-initiated quantitative sentiment ratings regarding an entity and calculating a real-time sentiment index for the entity using the received sentiment ratings. Embodiments of apparatus are also disclosed that comprise a plurality of computing devices each including an interface configured for the input of user-initiated quantitative sentiment ratings and a server which is configured to (i) receive sentiment ratings from the plurality of computing devices, (ii) determine a first subset of the received sentiment ratings that relate to a first entity, and (iii) calculate a first real-time sentiment index for the first entity using sentiment ratings from the first subset.