Thankfully, I have a day gig and got a chance to check out the Thin Wired Duke in all his e-glory at the speed he seems to think the world moves at. First off, this is a visual orgy. The design is eye-grabbing and eye-popping from the simple -- a rotating matrix on the site map freezes when you mouse-over one of the choices -- to the cutting edge: BowieWorld. This is a 3-D futuristic city where you can outfit an "avatar," an onscreen persona, and glide around running into other BowieNet visitors in their avatars. This was my first gaming and/or virtual experience of any kind and I certainly could have used something of a primer as I was repeatedly walking myself into the walls, when I was going in the right direction at all. But I was still enthralled . Bowie himself claims to have several such personae that he commandeers. In fact, in one of three intro videos to the site as a whole, Bowie claims to spend at least an hour daily at the site, reading the extraordinarily active message boards, checking out bugs in the new features and occasionally even chiming in as himself.

The shell of the experience is the free area where there is music news from in and out of David's universe, a history of the man who fell to earth and comprehensive discography with sound samples. Also "free" is access to Bowiebanc (5.9% APR if you're in dire need of a MasterCard with his master's face on it) and Bowieart, an ever-changing e-gallery of images by Bowie, UK art students and many of his friends that are available for view and purchase. This was one of the areas that I had regular difficulties in getting repeated error messages when the image-laden pages loaded at all. Plus, Bowie (and Iman) make a strong plug for Save the Children. Oddly, the BowieStore was sorely lacking -- the only record available is the recently released BBC Sessions.

But, the internet is all about making that next billion and Bowie makes sure that he saves the better stuff for the paying members. (Hint, you can test it out for a month free now. Try before you buy!) Members get their own web-based email address @davidbowie.com. Sorry, majortom@ and every other potential related alias that I tried were already snapped up, or blocked out from the outset more likely. The chronology section is arguably more enhanced in the paying section, but not with much more sound clips There are no full songs for download or even playback. These may be coming as Bowie says he wants to make the world safe for MP3, though not necessarily Napster. There is a vast, changing photo album and peek into David's journals -- basically message board-type items he put here instead.

I don't mean to disparage Bowie's input. In truth, his imprint and voice are all over the members area. There are links and annotated recommendations to points all over the internet and offline to art, literature, music and movies. Plus the archive trove he can draw on pretty guarantees anyone beyond a casual fan needs to return with some regularity to see what new nugget has appeared.

Members, or perhaps fanatics?, get access to the aforementioned incredibly popular message boards where one can post art, songs, poetry, journal entries and even something about Aladdin Sane. There are frequent online contests from art to songwriting. The latter judged by Bowie earned the winner a $15,000 award and the song recorded by Bowie. Other membership benefits range from the predictable live chats and advance notice of concerts and tickets to the truly unique. Bowienet members had the chance to work on a remix of a song that wound up on an online-only available live CD.