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This review first appeared in Issue 361 ofPC Pro.
The mid-90s was a race to get the world online.
David Bowie didnt just lend his name to an ISP; it wasnt some half-arsed piece of merchandise.
All this long beforeYouTubeorSecond Lifewere even a thing.
Weve spoken first-hand to the people who worked with Bowie to bring cyberspace to the masses.
Well also hear from fans who gorged on unprecedented access to their hero.
If youve never thought of David Bowie as an internet pioneer, then were about to change your mind.
This is the story of BowieNet.
Sound and vision
Ron Roy had always been a music fan.
I had a Ziggy Stardust poster over my bed, he said.
I was a massive Bowie fan.
My cousins were members of the Monkees and the Beatles fan clubs.
Bob knew Bill Zysblat [Bowies manager], so we decided to begin with David.
Roy and Goodale secured a meeting with Zysblat and Bowie.
We still didnt have all the dots connected, but we pitched for about three hours, said Roy.
Bowie loved the idea and concept.
Four or five days later, Zysblat called.
David wants in on the concept of the online fan club and he wants to be your first investor.
We said, lets get this model, the technology, perfectly right.
Lets hyper focus on BowieNet, then bring more artists and bands to our platform and grow the company.
BowieNet was conceived as Bill Clintons Telecommunications Act of 1996 became law.
Roy acknowledges this stroke of good fortune.
Our timing was very lucky.
However, it was Bowie himself driving the innovation.
David was a really good business partner and a great collaborator.
The concept was to give fans a direct gateway to their heroes.
Nobody understood the importance of that exclusive access better than Bowie.
He wasnt just putting his name to the product; he was the product.
Charlie Brookes discovered Bowie in the 80s, seeing him in concert almost 200 times.
He was one of the first fans to join BowieNet.
I didnt hesitate, she said.
It had David Bowie attached to it, so I was interested.
It was a proper interactive thing.
You could go in and dance with your mates.
I used BowieWorld to chat with my mates in America and all over Europe.
Thank God, laughs Ron Roy.
That was way beyond our technical scope, but David created his own avatar to be in there.
Another innovation of BowieWorld was gamification.
Bowie said: Charlie, I know exactly why you like it so much.
I really love going in the chat room, so I go in both as myself and anonymously.
Its an open secret that Bowies username was Sailor, but he confessed to Brookes about an alternative sobriquet.
Ive been frequently in as Mr Plod.
When you go in as David Bowie, they dont believe its you.
BowieNet member Steph Lynch was wowed by Bowies keenness to engage.
He was incredibly curious and liked to share his knowledge and passion, she said.
He genuinely was interested in people and what they found interesting and exciting.
You could have conversations, debates, discussions and also be incredibly silly.
Lynch devised a technical solution to notify her whenever Bowie appeared on BowieNet.
It was configured so that when Sailor appeared, a loud noise would play.
Still, the heinous expense of maintaining a round-the-clock internet connection paid off when Lynch first met Bowie.
He knew who I was, she said.
After a London TV appearance, Lynch had met up with other BowieNet fans.
Remember, in the 1990s, Lynch couldnt post phone pics to Instagram.
I didnt do it for him, she said.
I did it because everyone wanted copies.
People had come from all over the place to see David.
That sense of community added an extra dimension.
In the 90s, it was technologically risky, as Roy explains.
David was up for something that may not [have worked] because a 56k modem was so limited.
We tried every compression algorithm people would bring to us.
That pressure was also felt on stage.
Mark Plati is a musician and songwriter, co-producing two Bowie albums (EarthlingandHeathen) from the BowieNet era.
The first cybercast was 30 September 1997, he said.
We went to Boston and did a show.
Plati understands why Bowie threw himself into BowieNet.
I wasnt surprised because he would put that energy in everything, he said.
Hed go 200%, not a shock at all.
And it was cool.
Bowie was keen to share his passion for the internet with other members of his band.
Singer, songwriter and musician Emm Gryner appears on several of Bowies live albums.
I had a website of my own and I remember him giving advice on how to do it.
Youve got to click through like youre the fan and experience it.
I remember him being really excited about the opportunities and connectivity that it brought.
Gryner also recalls seeing the BowieNet fans from the stage.
You could see the neon green shirts of BowieNet members, show after show.
It was a reminder that innovation was happening behind the scenes.
I think David took pleasure in showing what could be done.
The end of it always was about how can we connect, not how to make a zillion dollars.
Gryner, Plati and Bowie shared a stage many times.
Gryner remembers that the performances for BowieNet fans felt different.
That was something that stood out to me about how he felt about that show.
Mark Plati also noticed Davids connection with BowieNet members.
He was so committed.
We did Wembley [NetAid, 9 October 1999] and then went to Ireland for 200 people.
This just made it super-efficient.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
By the new millennium, BowieNet was running in the USA, UK and Europe.
You had to figure out the billing, exchange rates, laughs Roy.
It was a good move.
Very few customers left the platform, said Roy.
We were pleasantly surprised, it showed the strength of the affinity.
It wasnt a bunch of media managers making decisions.
David was the driving force behind it.
Bowie and UltraStar also continued to push technological boundaries.
Sadly, however, it all came to a rather abrupt end.
The Reality Tour halted in June 2004 when David Bowie suffered a heart attack during a show.
Save for one or two appearances, Bowie all but vanished from public life.
The fuel for BowieNet was gone.
It was a ten-year journey, said Roy proudly.
David was stepping away, he had some health issues and was really focused on raising his daughter.
The partners got together and said it was time to wind this down.
UltraStar was sold to Live Nation and BowieNet became a free-to-all website.
Without the affinity hub, the fans scattered.
Its just the way the internet went, said Charlie Brookes.
Everything changed with social media.
Yet, even though the BowieNet hub was long since dissolved, a community remains.
We still get together and its as though nothing has changed, said Lynch.
A few years ago we met and it was like a mini BowieNet reunion.
Plati suggests BowieNet provided an environment thats hard to replicate on social media.
There were no trolls on BowieNet.
It was a community that you wanted to belong to and you had to pay to be part of.
Facebook is free and you get all kinds of whatever on there.
I wouldnt find that very exciting.
Having become great friends with Bowie, Emm Gryner wonders how he would have felt about social media.
There was something about that insider community that changed with social media.
If Im going to put something out on socials, the whole world can comment.
That doesnt seem to me like something that would have particularly excited him.
As Ron Roy put it: The connectivity was great, the affinity was greater.
