Little known software maker, Webaroo, has recently shuttered its operations. The founders, pictured to the right, in the traditional robes of psychedelic priests, have reportedly spent all of the $7.5 million dollars of funding they received on obscure research chemicals, prostitutes, and expensive ski jets, and have now started a new company, under the moniker “Gupshup,” which has secured $10 million in new funding.
Webaroo.com allowed users to “download the Internet” onto their mobile phones, as “web packages,” for offline browsing. Venture Capitalists saw the wisdom of an idea whose impetus was far ahead of its time and poured their money into it like an alcoholic father who tells his son, “I’ll drive us home” after “just one more.”
According to Wikipedia, “A beta version [of their web packages] was released in the second week of April 2006 and no newer versions have been released since.” Speculations abound as to why the company has decided to close the doors on its original idea.
One of the biggest reasons being cited, however, is that no one had told founder, and president, Brad Husick that the Internet had been updated since 2006. One ex-employee said she recently overheard several of Husick’s private phone calls where he had reportedly said, “You mean it keeps getting bigger and bigger? Where are all the files stored?…Warehouses?!”
Industry experts have called it “one of the worst ideas ever funded.”
One customer supported the idea, however, and said that “it would always be the right time [to buy the software], if only for the possibility that the bomb drops and we have to live a Mad Max style existence – scavenging and fighting over laptop batteries and petrol in old stores throughout the land. If that happens, I want to be able to read the encyclopedia at the end of the day.”
Currently, manufacturers are waiting for quantum computing to enter the mobile market before this idea becomes practical. By then, each person will be able to have their own private Internet on a disk the size of a fingernail. But by then, we will also all be communicating with wifi-enabled telepathic thought systems and the idea of downloading your own Internet may remain as ephemeral and antiquated as it seems today.
Great point Mike. It’s good to stop and think about all the things we take for granted.
It’s so sad when good technology goes bad. This could have helped so many poor countries where internet connections are so few and far between.