Earliest precursor to 'instapolling' ?
For the summer preview, Columbia Pictures president
Harry Cohn used wired seats to gauge the reactions of 200
viewers to what they were watching. Small levers allowed
them to record whether they liked or disliked a scene.
Although the audience seemed still and unresponsive in the
projection room, the long rolls of graph paper Cohn charged
in with at the end of the viewing showed that they loved it.
Sure enough, the movie broke box office records in New York
and Chicago when it opened.