
David Bowie, an Internet pioneer - mcdowall
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35279234
======
pygy_
_Bowie: I don 't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the
potential of what the Internet is going to do to society—both good and bad—is
unimaginable. I think we're on the cusp of something exhilarating and
terrifying.

Interviewer: It's just a tool, though, isn't it?

Bowie: No, it's not... no, it's an alien life form [laughs]. It's just arrived
from Mars. _

1998?

~~~
jccc
I very much doubt that he thought the Internet was invented by Gore in 1997.
Expand your time scale to the level of the point he's making, and yes it did
just arrive.

~~~
pygy_
I was not faulting him for possibly not knowing the full history of the
internet.

Pre-1997, the internet and the web were both very confidential. It started to
become a thing in the public mind around that time, and seeing it, in 2000
(apparently the proper date of the interview) as an alien life form is very
insightful.

~~~
asveikau
I don't disagree that characterizing it as an "alien" would not have been out
of place at the time.

However, it was not "confidential" in 1996. That is simply a ridiculous
statement.

~~~
aaroninsf
It's only ridiculous if you willfully overlooking the context of the
interview... which is not history of arpanet 101.

From the perspective of the Time magazine reading consumer middle class, yes,
the internet just arrived fully formed, with only Compuserve and its ilk as
hobbyist forerunners with hardly more uptake than CB or ham radio.

------
dirtyaura
The interview is gold. (I shared it earlier but it didn't garner enough
attention
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10883028))

He perfectly summarized the relationship between the art and the internet:
"That gray space in the middle (between the artist and the audience) is what
the 21st century is about"

Also it is fascinating how certain he was that new mediums will emerge and how
different they will be from what we knew back then. When we were pioneering
current style of social media with Jaiku back in 2006, many smart people
failed to understood how powerful social broadcast media could be. But Bowie
was already in 2000 understanding the power of it.

~~~
wodenokoto
Did he bank on it in any way? I've never noticed Bowie doing anything
particular social media, youtube exclusive, pay what you want or other similar
new media age kind of things.

As far as I know, he did news paper and TV intervews, released albums, played
live shows and acted in movies. Doesn't seem very "social broadcast media" to
me.

~~~
Arnt
Bank on it... in a way, yes. He sold the rights to his albums. People gave him
ready money in exchange for the future income from his albums.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_bond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_bond)

------
xbryanx
It's scary to think about how ephemeral some of these early internet
experiments are. Wayback Machine is great for static sites, but I'm amazed
that enough of this interactive media/software was captured to even report on.
I hope that the Bowie camp has some smart archivists who will preserve this
unique material.

~~~
cpwright
I worked on BowieNet in around 2000. He was really very involved in the site
and content. The biggest draw was the members-only concert.

Regarding the content. There was another company that did the design work, a
bunch of it in flash; but also in HTML for the message boards and stuff that
we integrated into our PHP forum that had all the actual messages stored in
MySQL. I'm not sure what would have happened to any of that when VillageWorld
(the company that did the backend at least initially) went bust in 2004; or if
it was migrated away or shut down before that.

The live chats were either IRC with a Java web client or we also had an NPH
script that we could of used, but I don't remember which ended up being "real"
at this point. There were definitely some that were organized and others that
were not.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Live chats with Bowie?

Care to give more details, stories, etc? BowieNet sounds fascinating to me.

------
castell
Omikron (1999) was a great game. It was one of the first open world games with
real 3D graphics. You could ride a taxi around the city, enter buildings, etc.
Of course GTA3 (2001) took it to the next level, but in 1999 GTA still was 2D:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_2)
.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikron:_The_Nomad_Soul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikron:_The_Nomad_Soul)

~~~
Zikes
$10 DRM Free on GOG:
[http://www.gog.com/game/omikron_the_nomad_soul](http://www.gog.com/game/omikron_the_nomad_soul)

$10 on Steam as well:
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/243000/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/243000/)

One of my favorite games, however I recommend playing it on Dreamcast if
that's an option, as the PC controls are a little painful to work with.

------
hakanensari
A non-Flash version of the interview:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg)

------
Queen_Station
Some very ignorant remarks and assumptions of people who did not watch the
full live BBC video interview relating to him, music & the internet and are
taking snippets - of course the internet was estsblished before 1998!!! Some
folks do not have a command of the english language and think they are
computer boffins. He was not talking "Microsoft" for example - relative to
music , him and people (audience) ... Very smart man - also get the
interviewer's question to comprehend his response ... People who were born in
the middle 70s & after, unless savy and forward thinking do not get: "David
Bowie, an internet pioneer" YES, most definitely I concur; he was & is ...
You're programmed already & not an individual (thinking tech facts blah) nor
creative as he was & he was the 1st "Personality" to offer himself as an ISP -
#Fact RIP Mr. JONES

------
Detrus
The interviewer's perspective was no less prophetic about the current reality.
The internet is mostly a tool to spread the same old media type of content,
just more and faster. A lot more America's Favorite Home videos and niche
channels than were possible before. A lot more spam, gossip and passing notes,
which is not very alien.

Engelbart also thought we would get somewhere alien. He underestimated the
power of the mainstream.

------
_jomo
For anyone trying to find the website on the WaybackMachine:

The BowieNet domain was davidbowie.com, not bowie.net (as noted under the
screenshot in the article).

------
bshimmin
I don't remember BowieNet at all, and I was definitely cheerfully using dialup
in the UK, with Demon Internet, in the late nineties ('97 onwards I'd say).
Was it really a big deal? I can't find out much information about it other
than a bunch of news sites this week all regurgitating variants of the same
material.

------
douchescript
At 98 those predictions were already old hat.

------
V-2
_" For a monthly fee, members got an @davidbowie.com-ending email address"_

Isn't it the same thing Trump gets ridiculed for? ;)

~~~
soneca
No, it isn't the same thing, and you took it out of context to make it seem it
is:

 _" BowieNet also operated as a full internet service provider (ISP) in the US
and UK, competing with AOL, Claranet and others. For a monthly fee, members
got an @davidbowie.com-ending email address and exclusive access to audio
recordings, music videos and chat rooms, which the singer participated in
himself."_

~~~
soneil
I found these, which give a better idea what the service actually promised:

BowieNet VPN Account: For $19.95/month subscribers can obtain full Internet
Service Access via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) arrangement with Concentric
Networks. Instead of dialing into AOL or your local ISP, you dial a Concentric
Networks number and gain full Internet access (web browsing, email, chat,
news, FTP) on the back of Concentric's worldwide network. $19.95/month
accounts also get an exclusive BowieNet CD-ROM which includes all the software
necessary to get you on the Internet together with two video tracks and a
newly recorded audio track called Fun.

Premium Content: For $5.95/month subscribers who want to retain their current
Internet provider can sign up to obtain a username and password to access the
premium content of BowieNet. That includes everything on the web as in the
BowieNet VPN account, but doesn't include the CD-ROM with the exclusive
tracks.

From a contemporary review:
[http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Othermedia/BowieNet/review.ht...](http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Othermedia/BowieNet/review.html)

