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