There can't be many people left who remembered the original subtitle! The original full title was: "Dr. Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia - Running light Without Overbyte"

Then perhaps the Post's response should be: "Okay, but we're NEVER GOING TO PUBLISH ANYTHING ABOUT YOU AGAIN." News, upcoming concerts, etc. - forget it.

1. It doesn't say that 4 seconds is "four seconds loading time is the maximum threshold for websurfers." In fact it says that 32% of people (on broadband) are willing to wait up to 4 seconds for a site to load. 68% are willing to wait longer.

2. They gathered this data by asking people "Typically, how long are you willing to wait for a single Web page to load before leaving the Web site? This is a very inaccurate measure - most people have no idea how long 4 seconds is when answering a question like this (obviously they would if they stopped and counted it out). They just pick something that sounds reasonable. A true study would have instrumented some web sites and gathered abandonment statistics for various page times.

3. The "overall performance" that caused people to say they would abandon a site included "poor error messages" and "site crashes."

I absolutely agree that sites work well and be fast. However posts like the one above will result in the "4 second rule" being carved into stone. It will get repeated around the internet and be built into business plans. All of a sudden, 4.1 seconds will become unacceptable. It's not that simple. Also, please note that this study was commissioned by Akamai, whose business is website acceleration. They have a vested interested in convincing you that you need to speed up your web site.