David Bowie was one of the first Internet entrepreneurs

In connection with the sad news of the death of the famous British musician David Bowie, the Inverse edition has collected several facts that open up this man in a new way and give an idea of ​​how subtly he felt innovation. Even before the world realized the possibilities of the Internet, Bowie began to share his songs through a special site, created an Internet provider and even an Internet bank.

Back in 1996, when the maximum speed of Internet access ranged from 28.8 Kbps to 33.6 Kbps, and the number of sites did not exceed 100,000, David Bowie launched the existing site DavidBowei.comspecifically designed to allow users to download his songs over the network. This idea was a definite success, because even with such a slow download speed, at least 375,000 Bowie art lovers took advantage of this opportunity.

It is interesting to note the point of view of David Bowie on the distribution of music on the Internet. In 2000, he gave an interview to BBC journalist Jeremy Paxan. Among other things, it was about the music business and how the music should reach the audience. Bowie believed that in the chain “musician” - “label” - “listeners” the second link is superfluous and it is necessary with the help of Internet technologies to create a more flexible system of interaction between music authors and those who listen to it.



In 1997, David Bowie issued bonds under his name Bowie Bonds , which were provided by the sales of his albums, released by the musician until 1990. Securities were issued for a period of 10 years, the US Treasury Agency found them reliable enough, so they were successfully sold to the Prudential Insurance Fund for a substantial sum of $ 55 million. The irony is that there was little time left before the dot-com boom, and the development of the Internet and the ability to share music through the network played a poor role for the Bowie Bonds: over time, bond prices plummeted and Moody's pulled them out of the market.

A year later, Bowie went into real Internet business: he created the Internet provider BowieNet, which had to compete with the then monopolist AOL. For $ 19.95 per month, users got access to the Network, a beautiful email address on the BowieNet domain, and even 5 MB of server space, which could be used to host their personal Internet page there.

For a small fee, you could get a premium tariff plan with access to chat rooms, in which the owner of BowieNet often appeared, you could install and use one of the first Flash players to listen to music online, as well as download exclusive songs and even videos from David Bowie's concerts. In 1999, Bowie spentThe first live internet broadcast of the Cyber ​​Song contest, which was carried out using a 360-degree camera.

In 2000, David Bowie launched the online bank Bowiebanc.com, which in fact was a “virtual” bank and fully operated at the facilities of a “full-fledged” USABancShares.com. Special credit cards with a portrait of a musician were issued, and when opening a bank account, you could get free access to the Internet through BoweiNet provider. Later, Bowie Bank began to pursue trouble from the US authorities and had to say goodbye to the idea.