Actually, I have an account at latimes.com, and I don't think I get any email from them at all. (I used a tracking address, so I'd know if it was from them.)
I'm sure you lose your soul if you register, just like when you get your picture taken, but at least thus far they haven't sent me any spam.
Interestingly, if you want to participate in the wiki, that's a different sign-up. But at least the regular latimes.com sign-in appears to generate no spam.
George Lucas is apprently putting what he wants to see on film. He's been monkeying with his old films to make them look more like what he wanted (or at least, what he wants now).
So if you're looking for an artistic rather than fiscal reason, that's it: George Lucas gets to make the movies he wants to make. He's writing and directing them, despite pleas from the fans to let somebody else do it. Supposedly that's what a real artist does: make the art his way, and critics, fans, and profits be damned.
He happens to get the profits anyway. But if you're asking him to stop making movies his way and make them the way you want to see them, he'll tell you what any artist would tell you: go make your own movie.
They didn't before? I don't suppose you saved a picture.
So they botched the projection and that became noticeable once you got as far north as Anchorage. I know that's a pain in the butt for you Alaskans, but somehow I find it kind of cool anyway. I've made a lot of bugs in my career, but I've never managed to let the curvature of the earth screw something up.
I tell junior programmers that the reason I can fix problems faster than they can is that I've already made every mistake they can possibly make. Somebody at Google has managed to screw something up in a way I never have. I bow to them.
The photographer doesn't want the copyrights per se. He just wants to be the guy to print them, and charge for the printing. He makes money, and he (or she, of course) guarantees that the prints are to his specifications. He'd hate to have his rep ruined by a bad print job.
There really is a difference in quality between a pro photographer and the neighbor kid with a camera. Maybe the kid's a photo nut who knows the right lenses to use, the right lighting (especially for formals rather than candids), how to compose a nice shot, and will otherwise be professional (getting the pictures on time, being nice to the guests, etc.). Or maybe not.
So feel free to start up your non-copyrighted photo business. There are plenty out there already. But I expect that they're a little more expensive than the photographers who retain the copyrights, because they don't expect to make their profit on the prints.
Or maybe they're just a dying breed. What I said notwithstanding, you really can take good photos these days with a consumer camera and a tiny bit of artistic sense. Pro wedding photographers may simply be a dying breed.
Rather than steganography, just embed a copyright in the relevant part of the file itself. I know that GIF has a place for that; I assume JPEG does.
When the Wal-Mart clerk checks the files, they should say, "This belongs to So-and-So; check ID". If the customer is savvy enough to work around that, it really is the customer's fault, not Wal-Mart's. Deliberate fraud by the customer is a whole new category.
It does seem ludicrous that a $5.25 an hour clerk is asked to make artistic judgments, but then, we regularly expect clerks to be handwriting analysis experts who check signatures on credit cards and checks. That's weird, and probably accounts for far more fraud than printing copyrighted photos.
Even if you don't have a widescreen TV or an HDTV there are plenty of Sony CRT based TVs that can squeeze the 480 scanlines into a 16:9 shape on the 4:3 tube and show the movie at full DVD resolution.
Huh. That's kinda cool. I'm not going to buy a new TV or anything, and I hope my next TV is HD, but if I have to buy a new TV I'll look for that feature.
What could be move distracting than amputated frames and obvious pans across the original material?
It's pretty distracting; the pans are nauseating. Like I said, not everything works in P&S. Some films are shot with the ultimate P&S in mind. The ultimate is Pixar films, where they sometimes re-stage some scenes to work in P&S. (I recall them doing that for Bug's Life.)
And sometimes, the stuff that's amputated is simply less important. And sometimes I'll watch it in widescreen instead.
I'd rather see movies in the theater much of the time. There are only a few I'm willing to pay $10 to see, and others I'll watch on DVD. But since all the threads so far have dissed movie theaters, I'll defend them.
The best reason to see a movie in the theater is the size of the screen and the corresponding resolution. Movies that are beautifully shot don't translate well even to a 30"+ screen. Partly that's because of the DVD format with its limited resolution. The beauty is often in the details. A gorgeous landscape is just a blur on a DVD; the best work of an actor comes out in tiny movements.
I saw Hero on the big screen and loved it; I can't help but think that part of the reason I liked House of Flying Daggers less is because I saw it on DVD. I'm sure it's at least as beautiful, but I just can't see it.
On DVD I'll often watch movies in pan&scan rather than widescreen because widescreen costs me even more of my limited scan lines. Often you can cut off part of the picture as less relevant; it ruins the composition but at least I can see what's going on. Sometimes that doesn't work, either. The only way to appreciate the movie is to watch it at the theater.
Maybe I'll change my mind when I start seeing high-definition DVDs. Even then it'll cost me $3,000 for a large TV and new DVD player; I can see a LOT of movies in the theater for that, even if I splurge and get the popcorn with simulated artificial butter-flavored grease.
Yeah, I don't like crying babies and overpriced popcorn and $20 for me and a date, either. But I go because there are things I do like that I just can't get at home.
(Also, it's creepy to invite your date over to your house for a first date. Movie theaters are a nice, neutral place.)
Ya know, that's a great question, and I don't know the answer.
I did find a press release describing a settlement to install more Rear Window devices in movie theaters in my area. So there's precedent. (Well, not "precedent" since settlements can't set precedents, but it does mean that at least one movie chain isn't willing to risk a lawsuit.)
I can tell you that one reason to go see a movie in the theater rather than at home is that theaters usually have better sound. Not that you care, I guess, but since most deaf people have at least some impression of sound you might enjoy big thrill movies with their huge soundtracks. And that's not the sort of thing you're going to get at home without a major home theater, and I can't imagine that you'd want to spend the money on one of those.
But I do like seeing movies in theaters because of the larger screens and higher resolutions (maybe that'll change when there are high-res DVDs), so I hope somebody does bring that lawsuit.
What are they called? They're called "CDs", at least by 99.9% of the world.
For Sony's lawyers and the techies who develop CD drivers they've probably got some internal name that the PR guys refuse to let them use anywhere else. The PR guys probably call them "albums".
I suspect that the term CD may outlast the actual CD format, the way you can "tape" something with your TiVo or watch a "film" shot and projected entirely digitally. (I like the fact that Sin City billed itself as "A Robert Rodriguez Digital File".)
I just can't get too worked up over that. By following their rules, you're putting yourself on a list of people who make legal fair-use copies. If the RIAA police nab you in the schoolyard with a CD-R labeled "Britney Spears Greatest Hits", you have an email from Sony that says, "Yes, you can make a copy of this disc."
You've got an alibi for the stuff you've copied legally, and they think of you as somebody who follows the rules. The "pirates" are those who aren't on the list.
But they continue to distribute the tools of schoolyard piracy, why spend any more time concocting the latest protection scheme?
Presumably because there are many legitimate uses of those tools.
The dilemma of copyright infringement has always been to enable the things that are legal and fair (like fair use and original compositions) while deterrming that which isn't legal and fair (like distributing copies).
Stopping making the tools would not only cut off an important market, but it wouldn't deter copyright infringement at all, since other companies would continue to make the same things. So they get a tiny percentage back, as well as enabling people to do legal things, such as making and distributing their own music.
"The new search" doesn't displace the "old search"
on
The Importance of RSS
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· Score: 1
The Slashdot summary is misleading about the content of the article. It's about new material on the Web, of which the most important category is blog entries. Del.icio.us is good at telling you about cool new sites. Google doesn't sort by date.
By "the new search" they might mean "the new cool thing now that search is largely done", but it's certainly nowhere near "search is over and replaced with RSS". RSS tells you about cool new stuff; search is how you find answers to questions. They apply to different web sites and different modes.
Pretty much as you said, and as the article said, and as the summary DIDN'T say.
Actually, AOL's "ISP" is AOL Transit Data Network (ATDN), a related company. They're a "tier 1" provider, and they communicate directly with other tier 1 providers: AT&T, MCI, Level(3), Verio, GBLX, C&W, Verizon, etc. They're the guys who own the big continent- and ocean-spanning fiber optic networks.
"ISP" usually refers to something more customer-facing than the tier 1 providers.
The "countless" programs are pilots. One episode gets made, and that's it. For the most part, if you'd seen them, you'd know why they never got made. If you hate the trash that makes it to TV now, you should see the crap that even studio executives can't stomach. Even if it was good, all you'd see is one episode and that's it.
Actually, that use wouldn't count in this study. They estimated piracy based on surveys of how many people said they used the software. If you're not using it, it doesn't count as a pirated copy of the software, even if it's on your disk ready to be used.
That doesn't mean the study isn't stupid and wrong, but I'm just saying your case doesn't count.
Many companies offer some sort of time-locked "try before you buy" for precisely this reason: let the user figure out if they want it. Unlike with, say, a car, it costs them nothing to let you use it for a while.
Blogs are going nowhere. They hype surrounding them will certainly die down. The question is, where will they settle?
Occasionally, a blog will truly break news. Will that news continue to get extra airtime in traditional media because it came from the relatively novel source of a blog?
For the mass of purely opinion blogs, will they become like op-ed pages, or be marginalized as the opinions of nobodies?
So they're not going anywhere. There will be more and more of them. They'll get less and less play in news stories titled, "Hey! Did you hear that there are things called blogs?" The question will be how important they are.
My guess is, not teribly. Most bloggers are under-informed and lacking in insight. Those who are well-informed and insightful may get picked up by major media. Or a new medium may form to attract attention to "major" bloggers: advertising, support, perhaps even pay. Occasionally a new one will attract attention without that, and they'll fight with the older bloggers, whom they'll accuse of being "establishment".
At least to my mind, a "journal" is an online diary, intended primarily for yourself and your friends. A "blog" is a soapbox or editorial page directed at the outside world. The difference is the size of the target audience.
Sometimes there's news in a blog, too. When news happens to a journal-keeper (e.g. you suddenly find yourself living in a war zone), your journal may well become a blog. A blog could also have news if it's for something other than world news. When a sourceforge developer posts daily news updating his progress, I'd call that a blog rather than a journal. Same with a politician recording his daily meetings.
The smaller the target audience, the more I'd call it a "journal" and less of a "blog". Most people think of "blogs" in terms of world news, for the largest possible audience. Since 99.999% of journal keepers live where there is little news of interest to the outside world, those who wish to be bloggers mostly get to write opinions rather than news. Those can be interesting, especially if you happen to find one who is very insightful.
The difference becomes one of the writer's attitude rather than the actual content. I keep a journal, and sometimes post political analysis, but it's only for my friends, and it's mixed in with other personal or random crap. The same political analysis, word for word, posted with the intent of attracting attention and discussion, would be a blog.
I'm not getting these definitions from a dictionary; it's my analysis of how I've seen the words used. YMMV.
I'd be interested to see if "video blogs" could take off.
I'll start by admitting that I don't quite get blogs, even just the text ones. The signal to noise ratio is too low to interest me.
That out of the way, I understand why some people like them: it's an alternative entertainment and news source. People read them at their desks, during work or during "surfing time" at home, when they're not watching TV.
Podcast blogs get time you spend away from your computer: exercising, driving, on the bus, etc. Your ears weren't doing anything anyway, and you can multicast.
But will people spend time watching their blogs? A text blog can read at your own pace and skimmed. A video proceeds at its own place and you can't do too much to alter it. The quality of the content is still the same. But it feels more like TV and less like web surfing, and so I wonder if people will find it more entertaining/informative than TV. TV is pretty damn compelling for most people.
Maybe. Video reporting from the middle of nowhere has the power to be more compelling than the text. "Hey, there's a riot going on!" is less intersting than showing pictures of the riot. But riots are few and far between, mostly. So we'll see what the niche looks like.
In the middle of a rather vicious flame you have a moderately good point: if it's only a requirement to offer the blocking service, it's not a question of free speech. If anything, this is a case for a conservative, pro-business group to say, "Hey, where's your legal right to regulate us in this fashion?"
But dude... seriously, you can make your point without calling them names. Feel free to disagree with them, and say so as loudly as you like, but you don't look any smarter when you accuse them of being bad people rather than just people you disagree with.
I agree that it's a brilliant idea, but the relevant question is, why will it succeed this time if it failed last time?
The most obvious answer is that the dotcom era is over. If they're offering a reasonable offer at a reasonable price, plus the economies of scale (why should every restaurant in the area have a separate delivery system when you can even out the bursts with a large central service?), it could well work.
As opposed to the dotcom era, when readily-available investor money and a land-rush attitude made for stupid promotions. A friend of mine bought stuff through kozmo because it was cheaper, even delivered, than buying the object in a store. Clearly they were losing money like crazy and he knew he was taking advantage of stupid investors.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I have an account at latimes.com, and I don't think I get any email from them at all. (I used a tracking address, so I'd know if it was from them.)
I'm sure you lose your soul if you register, just like when you get your picture taken, but at least thus far they haven't sent me any spam.
Interestingly, if you want to participate in the wiki, that's a different sign-up. But at least the regular latimes.com sign-in appears to generate no spam.
George Lucas is apprently putting what he wants to see on film. He's been monkeying with his old films to make them look more like what he wanted (or at least, what he wants now).
So if you're looking for an artistic rather than fiscal reason, that's it: George Lucas gets to make the movies he wants to make. He's writing and directing them, despite pleas from the fans to let somebody else do it. Supposedly that's what a real artist does: make the art his way, and critics, fans, and profits be damned.
He happens to get the profits anyway. But if you're asking him to stop making movies his way and make them the way you want to see them, he'll tell you what any artist would tell you: go make your own movie.
They didn't before? I don't suppose you saved a picture.
So they botched the projection and that became noticeable once you got as far north as Anchorage. I know that's a pain in the butt for you Alaskans, but somehow I find it kind of cool anyway. I've made a lot of bugs in my career, but I've never managed to let the curvature of the earth screw something up.
I tell junior programmers that the reason I can fix problems faster than they can is that I've already made every mistake they can possibly make. Somebody at Google has managed to screw something up in a way I never have. I bow to them.
The photographer doesn't want the copyrights per se. He just wants to be the guy to print them, and charge for the printing. He makes money, and he (or she, of course) guarantees that the prints are to his specifications. He'd hate to have his rep ruined by a bad print job.
There really is a difference in quality between a pro photographer and the neighbor kid with a camera. Maybe the kid's a photo nut who knows the right lenses to use, the right lighting (especially for formals rather than candids), how to compose a nice shot, and will otherwise be professional (getting the pictures on time, being nice to the guests, etc.). Or maybe not.
So feel free to start up your non-copyrighted photo business. There are plenty out there already. But I expect that they're a little more expensive than the photographers who retain the copyrights, because they don't expect to make their profit on the prints.
Or maybe they're just a dying breed. What I said notwithstanding, you really can take good photos these days with a consumer camera and a tiny bit of artistic sense. Pro wedding photographers may simply be a dying breed.
Rather than steganography, just embed a copyright in the relevant part of the file itself. I know that GIF has a place for that; I assume JPEG does.
When the Wal-Mart clerk checks the files, they should say, "This belongs to So-and-So; check ID". If the customer is savvy enough to work around that, it really is the customer's fault, not Wal-Mart's. Deliberate fraud by the customer is a whole new category.
It does seem ludicrous that a $5.25 an hour clerk is asked to make artistic judgments, but then, we regularly expect clerks to be handwriting analysis experts who check signatures on credit cards and checks. That's weird, and probably accounts for far more fraud than printing copyrighted photos.
Even if you don't have a widescreen TV or an HDTV there are plenty of Sony CRT based TVs that can squeeze the 480 scanlines into a 16:9 shape on the 4:3 tube and show the movie at full DVD resolution.
Huh. That's kinda cool. I'm not going to buy a new TV or anything, and I hope my next TV is HD, but if I have to buy a new TV I'll look for that feature.
What could be move distracting than amputated frames and obvious pans across the original material?
It's pretty distracting; the pans are nauseating. Like I said, not everything works in P&S. Some films are shot with the ultimate P&S in mind. The ultimate is Pixar films, where they sometimes re-stage some scenes to work in P&S. (I recall them doing that for Bug's Life.)
And sometimes, the stuff that's amputated is simply less important. And sometimes I'll watch it in widescreen instead.
Actually, I do better. I DO live theater. Last year when Hamlet died I had the best seat in the house: I was playing Horatio.
I'd rather see movies in the theater much of the time. There are only a few I'm willing to pay $10 to see, and others I'll watch on DVD. But since all the threads so far have dissed movie theaters, I'll defend them.
The best reason to see a movie in the theater is the size of the screen and the corresponding resolution. Movies that are beautifully shot don't translate well even to a 30"+ screen. Partly that's because of the DVD format with its limited resolution. The beauty is often in the details. A gorgeous landscape is just a blur on a DVD; the best work of an actor comes out in tiny movements.
I saw Hero on the big screen and loved it; I can't help but think that part of the reason I liked House of Flying Daggers less is because I saw it on DVD. I'm sure it's at least as beautiful, but I just can't see it.
On DVD I'll often watch movies in pan&scan rather than widescreen because widescreen costs me even more of my limited scan lines. Often you can cut off part of the picture as less relevant; it ruins the composition but at least I can see what's going on. Sometimes that doesn't work, either. The only way to appreciate the movie is to watch it at the theater.
Maybe I'll change my mind when I start seeing high-definition DVDs. Even then it'll cost me $3,000 for a large TV and new DVD player; I can see a LOT of movies in the theater for that, even if I splurge and get the popcorn with simulated artificial butter-flavored grease.
Yeah, I don't like crying babies and overpriced popcorn and $20 for me and a date, either. But I go because there are things I do like that I just can't get at home.
(Also, it's creepy to invite your date over to your house for a first date. Movie theaters are a nice, neutral place.)
Ya know, that's a great question, and I don't know the answer.
I did find a press release describing a settlement to install more Rear Window devices in movie theaters in my area. So there's precedent. (Well, not "precedent" since settlements can't set precedents, but it does mean that at least one movie chain isn't willing to risk a lawsuit.)
I can tell you that one reason to go see a movie in the theater rather than at home is that theaters usually have better sound. Not that you care, I guess, but since most deaf people have at least some impression of sound you might enjoy big thrill movies with their huge soundtracks. And that's not the sort of thing you're going to get at home without a major home theater, and I can't imagine that you'd want to spend the money on one of those.
But I do like seeing movies in theaters because of the larger screens and higher resolutions (maybe that'll change when there are high-res DVDs), so I hope somebody does bring that lawsuit.
What are they called? They're called "CDs", at least by 99.9% of the world.
For Sony's lawyers and the techies who develop CD drivers they've probably got some internal name that the PR guys refuse to let them use anywhere else. The PR guys probably call them "albums".
I suspect that the term CD may outlast the actual CD format, the way you can "tape" something with your TiVo or watch a "film" shot and projected entirely digitally. (I like the fact that Sin City billed itself as "A Robert Rodriguez Digital File".)
I just can't get too worked up over that. By following their rules, you're putting yourself on a list of people who make legal fair-use copies. If the RIAA police nab you in the schoolyard with a CD-R labeled "Britney Spears Greatest Hits", you have an email from Sony that says, "Yes, you can make a copy of this disc."
You've got an alibi for the stuff you've copied legally, and they think of you as somebody who follows the rules. The "pirates" are those who aren't on the list.
But they continue to distribute the tools of schoolyard piracy, why spend any more time concocting the latest protection scheme?
Presumably because there are many legitimate uses of those tools.
The dilemma of copyright infringement has always been to enable the things that are legal and fair (like fair use and original compositions) while deterrming that which isn't legal and fair (like distributing copies).
Stopping making the tools would not only cut off an important market, but it wouldn't deter copyright infringement at all, since other companies would continue to make the same things. So they get a tiny percentage back, as well as enabling people to do legal things, such as making and distributing their own music.
The Slashdot summary is misleading about the content of the article. It's about new material on the Web, of which the most important category is blog entries. Del.icio.us is good at telling you about cool new sites. Google doesn't sort by date.
By "the new search" they might mean "the new cool thing now that search is largely done", but it's certainly nowhere near "search is over and replaced with RSS". RSS tells you about cool new stuff; search is how you find answers to questions. They apply to different web sites and different modes.
Pretty much as you said, and as the article said, and as the summary DIDN'T say.
Actually, AOL's "ISP" is AOL Transit Data Network (ATDN), a related company. They're a "tier 1" provider, and they communicate directly with other tier 1 providers: AT&T, MCI, Level(3), Verio, GBLX, C&W, Verizon, etc. They're the guys who own the big continent- and ocean-spanning fiber optic networks.
"ISP" usually refers to something more customer-facing than the tier 1 providers.
The "countless" programs are pilots. One episode gets made, and that's it. For the most part, if you'd seen them, you'd know why they never got made. If you hate the trash that makes it to TV now, you should see the crap that even studio executives can't stomach. Even if it was good, all you'd see is one episode and that's it.
should I write 'farmonauts'?
No, you should not.
Actually, that use wouldn't count in this study. They estimated piracy based on surveys of how many people said they used the software. If you're not using it, it doesn't count as a pirated copy of the software, even if it's on your disk ready to be used.
That doesn't mean the study isn't stupid and wrong, but I'm just saying your case doesn't count.
Many companies offer some sort of time-locked "try before you buy" for precisely this reason: let the user figure out if they want it. Unlike with, say, a car, it costs them nothing to let you use it for a while.
Blogs are going nowhere. They hype surrounding them will certainly die down. The question is, where will they settle?
Occasionally, a blog will truly break news. Will that news continue to get extra airtime in traditional media because it came from the relatively novel source of a blog?
For the mass of purely opinion blogs, will they become like op-ed pages, or be marginalized as the opinions of nobodies?
So they're not going anywhere. There will be more and more of them. They'll get less and less play in news stories titled, "Hey! Did you hear that there are things called blogs?" The question will be how important they are.
My guess is, not teribly. Most bloggers are under-informed and lacking in insight. Those who are well-informed and insightful may get picked up by major media. Or a new medium may form to attract attention to "major" bloggers: advertising, support, perhaps even pay. Occasionally a new one will attract attention without that, and they'll fight with the older bloggers, whom they'll accuse of being "establishment".
In other words, same sh*t, different medium.
At least to my mind, a "journal" is an online diary, intended primarily for yourself and your friends. A "blog" is a soapbox or editorial page directed at the outside world. The difference is the size of the target audience.
Sometimes there's news in a blog, too. When news happens to a journal-keeper (e.g. you suddenly find yourself living in a war zone), your journal may well become a blog. A blog could also have news if it's for something other than world news. When a sourceforge developer posts daily news updating his progress, I'd call that a blog rather than a journal. Same with a politician recording his daily meetings.
The smaller the target audience, the more I'd call it a "journal" and less of a "blog". Most people think of "blogs" in terms of world news, for the largest possible audience. Since 99.999% of journal keepers live where there is little news of interest to the outside world, those who wish to be bloggers mostly get to write opinions rather than news. Those can be interesting, especially if you happen to find one who is very insightful.
The difference becomes one of the writer's attitude rather than the actual content. I keep a journal, and sometimes post political analysis, but it's only for my friends, and it's mixed in with other personal or random crap. The same political analysis, word for word, posted with the intent of attracting attention and discussion, would be a blog.
I'm not getting these definitions from a dictionary; it's my analysis of how I've seen the words used. YMMV.
I'd be interested to see if "video blogs" could take off.
I'll start by admitting that I don't quite get blogs, even just the text ones. The signal to noise ratio is too low to interest me.
That out of the way, I understand why some people like them: it's an alternative entertainment and news source. People read them at their desks, during work or during "surfing time" at home, when they're not watching TV.
Podcast blogs get time you spend away from your computer: exercising, driving, on the bus, etc. Your ears weren't doing anything anyway, and you can multicast.
But will people spend time watching their blogs? A text blog can read at your own pace and skimmed. A video proceeds at its own place and you can't do too much to alter it. The quality of the content is still the same. But it feels more like TV and less like web surfing, and so I wonder if people will find it more entertaining/informative than TV. TV is pretty damn compelling for most people.
Maybe. Video reporting from the middle of nowhere has the power to be more compelling than the text. "Hey, there's a riot going on!" is less intersting than showing pictures of the riot. But riots are few and far between, mostly. So we'll see what the niche looks like.
I think for my birthday present I'd want Dramamine. Zipping around that fast I'd get motion sick.
And here in Washington, DC, where the dew point is 72, swamp cooling just makes it muggier.
In the middle of a rather vicious flame you have a moderately good point: if it's only a requirement to offer the blocking service, it's not a question of free speech. If anything, this is a case for a conservative, pro-business group to say, "Hey, where's your legal right to regulate us in this fashion?"
But dude... seriously, you can make your point without calling them names. Feel free to disagree with them, and say so as loudly as you like, but you don't look any smarter when you accuse them of being bad people rather than just people you disagree with.
The landscape of the online market is completely different now vs. five years ago when other major efforts were made.
Can you elaborate on that one? Is it just that things are less crowded now (i.e. fewer well-funded but badly-run equivalents driving out competence)?
I agree that it's a brilliant idea, but the relevant question is, why will it succeed this time if it failed last time?
The most obvious answer is that the dotcom era is over. If they're offering a reasonable offer at a reasonable price, plus the economies of scale (why should every restaurant in the area have a separate delivery system when you can even out the bursts with a large central service?), it could well work.
As opposed to the dotcom era, when readily-available investor money and a land-rush attitude made for stupid promotions. A friend of mine bought stuff through kozmo because it was cheaper, even delivered, than buying the object in a store. Clearly they were losing money like crazy and he knew he was taking advantage of stupid investors.