Comments on: The Strange Tale of Wi-Fi Startup Whisher

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:20:43 +0000

I hope I can wade into the melee without getting flamed! Judging from their website it doesn’t look like wifi.com has made much progress with whisher following the acquisition (their blog hasn’t been updated since 2008). I can’t judge the product itself that so impressed Eric ;-) but at least the idea to me makes sense – particularly now that more and more phones have Wifi capability. But I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere for a viable hotspot-sharing business model. Besides FON I’ve found free-hotspot.com. Do you know of any others? Thanks.

By: danny

danny — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:03:27 +0000

WHAT ABOUT GOWEX?

By: Fabio

Fabio — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:05:03 +0000

I think Eric has valid comments. Why now does Mike say nothing? Especially after their official statement about Ferran’s corrupt ways

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:05:37 +0000

Eric, did these guys sodomize you with a large stick or something? Jeez, relax dude…

By: Eric E

Eric E — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:47:29 +0000

My god, now he has pulled the story from his firehose site!

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:43:29 +0000

I would also be interested to find out what is happening so far. Do not know if it is just me but Whisher seemed to make lots of noise then shut up. This is happening again now?

By: Eric E

Eric E — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:28:59 +0000

So, keep us up to date Mr P…. is Ferran in Jail?

By: Eric E

Eric E — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:38:23 +0000

Yep, Mike, that worked eh ;-)

By: Eric E

Eric E — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:21:22 +0000

ROTFLMAO …. are you serious!

By: Mike Puchol

Mike Puchol — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:11:48 +0000

Emailed Om to remove the now tasteless personal attacks involving a fine actor who is deceased – you really are sick and should have your head looked at. Actually, donate your brain to science, it may help others with your condition.

By: Eric E

Eric E — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:38:38 +0000

“people don’t care about trolls who don’t put a real name and face behind their crap.” ….. what was it I said?

“thought they had some vague idea of what the public wanted” …. yet again you make assumptions

Mike, on a lighter note, your “Whisher – The Story” article has inspired me organize

“Whisher – The Musical”

Needless to say, the idea is that most of the cast will be talentless, expect for your character. The first person I had in mind to play you was John Candy, but then I realised he was dead.

I will keep you posted as to which theatre will be showing it. An email to swisscom is already on it’s way asking for funding !

By: Mike Puchol

Mike Puchol — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:12:57 +0000

Nothing more fun that poking a troll with a cattle prod and watching him fume :D
Oh, and you’re still an anonymous coward, so keep coming the crap and hiding, people don’t care about trolls who don’t put a real name and face behind their crap.

(apologies that it’s your blog Om, just couldn’t resist)

By: Eric E

Eric E — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:04:54 +0000

Well Mike, you blog is bullshit, with lies about “amazing” things Whisher / Wifi / what ever rubbish you call it can, will (never !!) do. You slated other start up’s but failed to see the F A I L factor in your own. You are kiss up to Martin V in the hope that you might be able to jump on his money train now that you find you have no money. FAIL FAIL FAIL. You censor any negative comments… you are the brain dead person behind a keyboard, not I

By: Mike Puchol

Mike Puchol — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:16:50 +0000

Eric – please leave the insults at home, or say who you are, and what your motivations are for such a bile flush. My guess at this time is “troll”, but I could be wrong, you could be the German dude who also spilled bile on my blog until I sent his IPs to goatse…

We got funding from Swisscom. We got funding from Benchmark (later Balderton) – not exactly a small fund. I guess they must have seen something, and we must have done -something- right.

Finally, who says Whisher failed? It may have failed as a company (and a big factor in that has recently transpired), but the product lives on at wifi.com, with a new team, and new aims. If wifi.com purchased the technology, they must have seen something in it, if it was so bug-ridden, they would have built their own, don’t you think?

Anyway, it’s pointless arguing with braindead people like you, so I hope you live a happy life behind your keyboard, buh bye!

By: Eric E

Eric E — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:19:05 +0000

Well it is really no surprise to me. It was a joke from day one if you followed the whole sordid story. Now with the accusations of fraud it puts the cherry on the cake.

I could never understand why Swisscom would consider backing such a feeble product, with talentless developers and management. I can only think that they gave a tiny amount of money to it, and that “Whisher” attempted to say “look at us! Swisscom fund us!!” to make them look important.

Glad to see it failed, as it was a lame product, bug ridden and badly managed by a team who thought they had some vague idea of what the public wanted… fools

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:51:56 +0000

Arnon: when the monthly burn doesn’t exceed a reasonable amount for the company structure, and the invoices look legit to an auditor, it’s very hard to detect such a scheme. Before a sale, for example, burn is reduced to a minimum, and this is when odd expenses can be spotted. In other cases, it’s necessary to get the input and do fact-checking with other people at the company not involved with the finances, in which case unexplained payments can also be spotted. It is also easier to spot that something is wrong when the embezzler doesn’t change his lifestyle and starts buying Ferraris, but rather doesn’t spend the money.