An empirical analysis of inter-acquisition time of free online content

Free, content-oriented Web sites depend on advertising revenues that are based on the number of visitors to the site. To induce visitors to acquire information quickly, these sites present information items according to their popularity. We empirically examine two key determinants of a visitor's inter-acquisition time (popularity and the number of information items previously acquired by the visitor) using a hazard model estimated from data obtained from del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. The results indicate that inter-acquisition times are longer for heavy users and for less popular information items. The results are relevant for other free content-providing sites such as cnet.com and music.yahoo.com.