links for 2009-11-17

One of the most common problem on the web is slow web sites, wasting he time of end users. Now, perhaps, Mozilla has come up with a solution for this, which will be applicable for all web browser vendors.

If you are wondering what Google Wave brings to the Project Management world you may want to first start by reading a Wave that has been ongoing now for quite a while (I have been following & contributing to it for at least the last 6 weeks) titled Google Wave for Project Management.

Americans, it turns out, are less willing than people in many other Western countries to pay for their online news, according to a new study by the Boston Consulting Group.

Among regular Internet users in the United States, 48 percent said in the survey, conducted in October, that they would pay to read news online, including on mobile devices. That result tied with Britain for the lowest figure among nine countries where Boston Consulting commissioned surveys. In several Western European countries, more than 60 percent said they would pay.

Others aren't so sure. "That [usage decline] could be for a small percentage of the age group, but I would want to see more evidence to show that that audience is running away from Facebook," said James Kiernan, svp and group client director at MediaVest USA.

Kiernan believes much of the decline in the comScore numbers is due to younger people accessing the site via iPhones, BlackBerrys and other portable devices and applications. That skews the numbers, as there isn't a single source that tabulates usage from all available platforms.

Italian novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco, who is curating a new exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, talks to SPIEGEL about the place lists hold in the history of culture, the ways we try to avoid thinking about death and why Google is dangerous for young people.