Is anyone using this on their site?

I did a test order on my friend's site for $0.20 17mins ago, and it shows one confirmation so far.
The bitcoins someone sent me 30mins ago is at three confirmations so far.
Is someone supposed to sit at the confirmation page for 30-60 minutes for confirmation
for six?

What exactly are these confirmations and why is this taking so long? I'd assume this would
get a lot of complaints.