[Air-l] participation patterns

[Ellis Godard]

Chris Helland asked:
> >Has there been any good publications or work that
> >looks at the number of sites people look at when they
> >surf?  I would like to know--based on averages--how
> >many sites do people normally visit when they are
> >online? (X sites per hour or any information like
> >that)

I shared your question with a friend who formerly developed top search
engines and now writes software to grep web traffic data. He suggested the
following thoughts and sources:

> Most of the good data on this is proprietary and sold for bazillions of
> dollars. The best of breed seems to be http://www.netvalue.com/.
> This type
> of info is also the marketing fuel for advertising campaigns, and the
> conduits are the AOLs and MSNs and big ISPs of the world who know how
> valuable it is. They aren't "supposed" to maintain this information for
> privacy reasons; but they do. Tracking software (Inon-ISP) can
> only tell you
> -- from one site -- where the person came from and where they went next.
>
> The "big" conclusions that probably won't help you much: when
> people first
> come to the net, they surf a lot. Lots of exploring. Then they stop, and
> stick with one or more portals; net has become much more
> utilitarian and far
> less exploratory, branding takes hold, and so on. But you probably knew
> that. :-)
>
> There is some pretty good demographic info @
> http://cyberatlas.internet.com/

Good luck, Chris!
Ellis