RIP Bolt.com: Social networking before we knew what it was
Bolt.com, best known as a video sharing site that didn't really catch on, has filed for bankruptcy and shut down. The site had been in acquisition talks with GoFish, which would have been able to cover the $10 million settlement in a copyright infringement case with Universal Music. Earlier this month, the acquisition fell through, and Bolt was essentially doomed.
But it was really MySpace, not YouTube or copyright woes, that struck the first blow to Bolt. Before it shifted its focus to video, Bolt was a teen-oriented social networking site in the days when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was probably getting beat up on a playground somewhere. You could create a profile, talk with other members in chat rooms and message boards (this was the pre-webcam era), and engage in other forms of 1998-vintage "interactivity," like online quizzes and polls.
Bolt circa 2001, thanks to the Internet Archive.
(Credit: The Internet Archive)I was a teen in the '90s and had a Bolt profile out of curiosity, but those were the days when Internet social networking was still a very restricted phenomenon for a number of reasons: first, it was still seen as "weird" (and from parents' perspectives, dangerous) for teenagers to be socializing online rather than in real life; and second, AOL was still a juggernaut in those days. Its chat rooms and message boards, not to mention Instant Messenger, were the go-to place for kids who didn't feel like doing their homework. Then there was the fact that chatting and message board posting was, thanks to the limitations of dial-up connections, more or less all you could do. The infectious draw of viral videos and streaming music was still out of reach for many.
The critical mass wasn't there, so there was no real bandwagon effect to help Bolt grow. Then MySpace came along with its originally music-focused model--if My Chemical Romance has a social networking profile, it can't be just for losers, right?--and online social networking lost much of its "a/s/l?" stigma (that's "age/sex/location," one of the Web's oldest pickup lines, for you newbies). Bolt probably could've found some way to "evolve" and get the word out, but it didn't--the video-site makeover flopped amid the current glut of YouTube clones.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
that the old bolt was better than myspace. Its sad to see it go.
What did you like or not like about it ?
I just ran across articles about it and it sounds interesting.
Oh, and a/s/l? :) I actually met a girl on bolt.com that I wound up dating. And during my second phase of Army training (the job training, or AIT), I would be at the post library chatting it up, making friendships that lasted for years, all through bolt.com. Oh well. I agree with whoever said it would be nice if someone revives it.
I was on Bolt2 (which was actually the original Bolt, after Bolt decided to attempt to copy YouTube) under various names until the day it shut down in early '07, being the nerd that I am, and made several good friends, who I'm still in contact with today. It had a good run, lasting ten years, and I'm sad to see it completely gone.
I had no idea that Bolt had been shut down. I found this article because, for the first time in who knows how long, I'd remembered it and decided to check to see if my account was still valid. So, now I'm kinda sad since I was ready to look at everything I'd done on there for the last seven years, and now it's just all gone.
Anyway, I'm glad to see it's gone. That's just one less cest pool of a website.
From http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/30/where-are-they-now-bolt-com?page=0%2C1
Totally sucks that bolt.com is gone. I hope one day they bring the old bolt back. I like doing the Tagbooks and go into the forums.
My best friend got me on there when we was like 13. She recently passed away in June and before that, we actually brought up the fact that teentalk and bolt.com was our "learning" area when education nor parents would help us. It was our way of getting information, socializing and making use til we where picked up at the library at school.
If they bring back bolt.com again, it better stay the old style, not "updated" it to be like youtube or myspace. That is why bolt was so interesting and fun.
I was l0stwun. I made my first "homepage" on Bolt.com. When they got rid of homepages, I moved on to Homestead.com, and then I learned HTML and was eventually part of the whole teen personal domain craze. haha
I probably posted on my first message board at Bolt.com aswell. The message boards were great, and the social aspect of tagbooks wow'd me at the time.
Bolt.com was as influential as Mavis Beacon, ICQ and Napster for me :P
- by Jonboyz August 14, 2009 7:25 PM PDT
- i was on bolt all them years ago was 16/17 at the time loved it on there the chat rooms were jsu tthe best around and meet alot of people on there as well. some of witch i still talk to.
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(24 Comments)pitty it was closed down and then reopened with this crap site that only has the same name.
will miss it.