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Bolt (website)
Encyclopedia
Bolt was a social networking and video website
active from 1996 to 2007 before reopening in April 2008. It was shut down for a period of one year due to copyright violations leading to bankruptcy. It was acquired by new owners on January 4, 2008 and operated successfully for several months before announcing plans to go offline in October 2008.
, chat room
s, message boards, tagbooks (a knowledge market
feature), photo albums, internet radio
, browser game
s, blog
s, e-card
s, an instant messenger service, a clubs feature (giving people with similar interests a common message board), and badges (a system of awards for user profiles). An e-mail service was hosted, but it was discontinued due to email companies such as Yahoo and Google providing between 1 and nearly 3 gigabytes of email storage for free, rendering Bolt's email service obsolete. This was done without notifying its email subrscribers. Also bolt was one of the first sites to give its members their own web page.
As the site aged it relied more on corporate sponsorships. In 2002 the badges slowly started leaning towards company sponsored badges, which led to Bolt becoming more commercial with an increase of ads into the users' activities. Some notable ones included the Verizon Wireless
, Gillette, and Sony
badges.
Bolt was originally marketed towards teenagers to create content, meet people, and play games in a safe, no pressure, and age-appropriate environment. However, as members aged and stayed with the site, more and more members were college students and/or between 18-24. These members tended to be more interested in current events, religion, and politics, and kept the message boards active with lively heated debate. Many members had known each other for several years and have formed close bonds with their fellow "regs." When Boltfolio, soon to become the new Bolt.com was introduced, members were at first very willing to aid Bolt Media in improving the site. Tensions soon flared between Bolt Media and the supporters of the classic Bolt system as Bolt Media slowly started to turn their full attention to the new Bolt.com. Very few members were willing to make the switch, and after the demise of Bolt2, few stayed on to post on the new Bolt website.
In 2004, bolt.com revamped its site during the summer and officially unveiled itself July 15, 2004. Renovations to the site were completed on September 14, 2004 when the clubs were re-opened. Some of the notable changes include:
Bolt.com's second iteration was originally known as Boltfolio, a Bolt Media property launched in late 2005. Touted by itself as the leader of the "cult of creativity", Boltfolio intended to provide a one-stop shop for creative users to upload their own photos, videos, and music, as well as write blogs or record directly from a webcam. The original aim was to provide a simple set of tools that would attract users of like-minded creative sites such as DeviantArt
, YouTube
, and Flickr
.
On October 17, 2006, one week after announcing a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube
, Universal Music filed suit against Bolt Media and another video site, Grouper
. Universal contended that both sites allowed and promoted their users to swap pirated music videos. Several weeks later, Bolt removed the music section from their site, without any explanation.
In February 2007, Bolt Media announced that it would be selling itself to GoFish
, another online video company, for $30 million. According to Aaron Cohen, Bolt's CEO, Bolt would once again change its focus from uploaded content to content creation; saying that the former was no longer "interesting business." Cohen and Bolt president Jay Gould are also involved in a new project, called WikiYou, which has received seed funding from First Round Capital
and Mayfield Fund.
On Friday, March 30, 2007 it was announced that Bolt2.com would shutdown on April 6, 2007, ending more than 10 years of operations. This letter posted on the site to members of the community:
On July 30, 2007, Digital Music News reported that the GoFish buyout of Bolt had been abandoned. This was later confirmed by GoFish
in a press release.
Unable to withstand a lawsuit from copyright holders, Bolt.com filed for bankruptcy, and the site was shut down August 14, 2007.
On April 21, 2008, Bolt.com went live again. The domain is registered to Fundbolt, LLC, a limited liability company based in Irvington, New York
. Many of the original user profiles seem intact and all the old forum posts seem to still be active.
On August 1, 2008, Bolt.com began integrating aspects of the old Bolt2.com site. Tagbooks, a popular way to ask questions and get answers from the broader community, were relaunched on the site.
On September 30, 2008, Bolt.com was announced to be shutting down once again. It was announced that this was due to the website's resurrection "not working out as they'd hoped".
On October 6, 2008, the site was shut down.
Sometime in the month of December a notice was put up at the bottom of Bolt.com's old domain announcing the return of Bolt.com social network. The site was later re-opened, hosted by Ning
. By July 2011, the site was once again shut down.
's American Idol
during the second season. This created a swarm of new members signing up to talk only about American Idol. This did not sit well with the veterans, as the quality of discussion on the site greatly dwindled. FOX later created and maintained their own message boards for the third season, but cross promotion still continued with AI sponsored quizzes, avatars, and badges. By the fourth season, the cross promotion was gone, but the message boards were still created and maintained. There were no message boards created for the fifth season of American Idol.
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
active from 1996 to 2007 before reopening in April 2008. It was shut down for a period of one year due to copyright violations leading to bankruptcy. It was acquired by new owners on January 4, 2008 and operated successfully for several months before announcing plans to go offline in October 2008.
1996-2006
In 1996 Bolt.com was started as a teen community, by a team including Dan Pelson, Lee Morgenroth, David Cancel and Jane Mount as part of Concrete Media. In many ways Bolt.com was ahead of its time. It was among the first social networking sites to appear on the Internet. It offered a wide range of unique services including a daily horoscopeHoroscope
In astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, the astrological aspects, and sensitive angles at the time of an event, such as the moment of a person's birth. The word horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning "a look at the hours" In...
, chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s, message boards, tagbooks (a knowledge market
Knowledge market
A knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. There are two views on knowledge and how knowledge markets can function. One view uses a legal construct of intellectual property to make knowledge a typical scarce resource, so the traditional commodity market mechanism can be...
feature), photo albums, internet radio
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
, browser game
Browser game
A browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
s, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, e-card
E-card
An e-card is similar to a postcard or greeting card, with the primary difference being that it is created using digital media instead of paper or other traditional materials. E-cards are made available by publishers usually on various Internet sites, where they can be sent to a recipient, usually...
s, an instant messenger service, a clubs feature (giving people with similar interests a common message board), and badges (a system of awards for user profiles). An e-mail service was hosted, but it was discontinued due to email companies such as Yahoo and Google providing between 1 and nearly 3 gigabytes of email storage for free, rendering Bolt's email service obsolete. This was done without notifying its email subrscribers. Also bolt was one of the first sites to give its members their own web page.
As the site aged it relied more on corporate sponsorships. In 2002 the badges slowly started leaning towards company sponsored badges, which led to Bolt becoming more commercial with an increase of ads into the users' activities. Some notable ones included the Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
, Gillette, and Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
badges.
Bolt was originally marketed towards teenagers to create content, meet people, and play games in a safe, no pressure, and age-appropriate environment. However, as members aged and stayed with the site, more and more members were college students and/or between 18-24. These members tended to be more interested in current events, religion, and politics, and kept the message boards active with lively heated debate. Many members had known each other for several years and have formed close bonds with their fellow "regs." When Boltfolio, soon to become the new Bolt.com was introduced, members were at first very willing to aid Bolt Media in improving the site. Tensions soon flared between Bolt Media and the supporters of the classic Bolt system as Bolt Media slowly started to turn their full attention to the new Bolt.com. Very few members were willing to make the switch, and after the demise of Bolt2, few stayed on to post on the new Bolt website.
In 2004, bolt.com revamped its site during the summer and officially unveiled itself July 15, 2004. Renovations to the site were completed on September 14, 2004 when the clubs were re-opened. Some of the notable changes include:
- The removal of HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
customization on the main club page. - The removal of HTML in the club news, a popular feature that may have contributed to the fall in popularity of Bolt. Bolt also became a popular site for NSFWNSFWNot suitable/safe for work , not work-suitable/safe , or not school-suitable is Internet slang or shorthand...
interaction, pushing their original audience farther away!
Bolt.com's second iteration was originally known as Boltfolio, a Bolt Media property launched in late 2005. Touted by itself as the leader of the "cult of creativity", Boltfolio intended to provide a one-stop shop for creative users to upload their own photos, videos, and music, as well as write blogs or record directly from a webcam. The original aim was to provide a simple set of tools that would attract users of like-minded creative sites such as DeviantArt
DeviantArt
deviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, and Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
.
2006-2009
In December 2005 Bolt Media finalized a deal to purchase InterMedia Inc., a small company focused on a video-sharing site, Yashi. Yashi and Boltfolio were integrated into one site, and in March 2006 Bolt Media opted to focus the company on this new property. Thus Boltfolio became Bolt.com, bumping the existing Bolt.com site to the URL Bolt2.com on March 6. As 2006 wore on, creative Bolt members were featured less and less on the site, taking a back seat to videos produced by Bolt staff, popular music videos, and viral videos that also were appearing on competing video sites.YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Universal Music filed suit against Bolt Media and another video site, Grouper
Grouper
Groupers are fish of any of a number of genera in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes.Not all serranids are called groupers; the family also includes the sea basses. The common name grouper is usually given to fish in one of two large genera: Epinephelus...
. Universal contended that both sites allowed and promoted their users to swap pirated music videos. Several weeks later, Bolt removed the music section from their site, without any explanation.
In February 2007, Bolt Media announced that it would be selling itself to GoFish
GoFish
GoFish was a free video sharing website, headquartered in San Francisco, California, allowing visitors to watch and upload video clips, similar to websites like YouTube and Google Video. It was started in May 2005 and ended in, or about, December 2008 when it was taken over by the GoFish...
, another online video company, for $30 million. According to Aaron Cohen, Bolt's CEO, Bolt would once again change its focus from uploaded content to content creation; saying that the former was no longer "interesting business." Cohen and Bolt president Jay Gould are also involved in a new project, called WikiYou, which has received seed funding from First Round Capital
First Round Capital
First Round Capital is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Managed by Josh Kopelman, Chris Fralic, Rob Hayes and Howard L. Morgan, the Philadelphia-based company typically provides seed-stage investment that ranges from $250,000 to $500,000...
and Mayfield Fund.
On Friday, March 30, 2007 it was announced that Bolt2.com would shutdown on April 6, 2007, ending more than 10 years of operations. This letter posted on the site to members of the community:
"Well, the time had come. We have decided that it is time to officially say good-bye to Bolt2. In the past few years Bolt Media has explored new ideas, and grown in a different direction. As we continue to move in this direction it has become necessary that we need to make some difficult choices.
One of which is the closure of Bolt2. Although we value our loyal members, we are clearly moving in a new direction and need to focus our energies there. We recognize that many of you have been on the site for up to 10 years, and would like to thank you for your support and for allowing us to be a part of your lives. We hope you are able to take the time to reflect on the people who you may have met through Bolt2 and maintain these friendships after the site is down.
Much like pulling off a band-aid, the closure will be short and hopefully not too painful. The site will officially close on Friday, April 6th at noon (eastern standard time)."
Again, we would like to express our gratitude for your continued support of Bolt2. You have been a valuable part of our lives, and we hope to see you on Bolt in the future.
GoFish
GoFish was a free video sharing website, headquartered in San Francisco, California, allowing visitors to watch and upload video clips, similar to websites like YouTube and Google Video. It was started in May 2005 and ended in, or about, December 2008 when it was taken over by the GoFish...
in a press release.
Unable to withstand a lawsuit from copyright holders, Bolt.com filed for bankruptcy, and the site was shut down August 14, 2007.
On April 21, 2008, Bolt.com went live again. The domain is registered to Fundbolt, LLC, a limited liability company based in Irvington, New York
Irvington, New York
Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson, is an affluent suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a station stop on the...
. Many of the original user profiles seem intact and all the old forum posts seem to still be active.
On August 1, 2008, Bolt.com began integrating aspects of the old Bolt2.com site. Tagbooks, a popular way to ask questions and get answers from the broader community, were relaunched on the site.
On September 30, 2008, Bolt.com was announced to be shutting down once again. It was announced that this was due to the website's resurrection "not working out as they'd hoped".
On October 6, 2008, the site was shut down.
Sometime in the month of December a notice was put up at the bottom of Bolt.com's old domain announcing the return of Bolt.com social network. The site was later re-opened, hosted by Ning
Ning
Ning is an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks, launched in October 2005. Ning offers customers the ability to create a community website with a customized appearance and feel, feature sets such as photos, videos, forums and blogs, and the service layers in...
. By July 2011, the site was once again shut down.
Upgrades and Promotions
- Bolt2.com was to be called classicbolt.com
- The Badge Race Club featured Bolt members in reality series based eliminations for collecting badges.
- A club was created to promote a FOX show WonderfallsWonderfallsWonderfalls is a comedy-drama television series that was broadcast on the Fox television network in 2004.The show centres on Jaye Tyler , a recent Brown University graduate with a philosophy degree, who holds a dead-end job as a sales clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop...
in February 2004. A badge was given to members who joined to help spread the word of the show to increase viewership and the show's ratings. The show was canceled in early April and the club was quickly deleted. - Bolt Radio had "radio stations" and members who submitted songs that they wanted to hear on Bolt Radio received the bolt DJ badge.
- On April 29, 2008, Bolt decided to use the classic Bolt logo again.
The American Idol Effect
In 2003 Bolt was the official message board for FoxFox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
's American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
during the second season. This created a swarm of new members signing up to talk only about American Idol. This did not sit well with the veterans, as the quality of discussion on the site greatly dwindled. FOX later created and maintained their own message boards for the third season, but cross promotion still continued with AI sponsored quizzes, avatars, and badges. By the fourth season, the cross promotion was gone, but the message boards were still created and maintained. There were no message boards created for the fifth season of American Idol.
Trivia
- Originally, bolt2.com was to be called classicbolt.com
- Almost from the beginning Bolt member LoLiEpOpPe for 7 years was the highest ranking badge collector until she was dethroned in April 2006 by o0oBaByDoLLo0o who was then dethroned by DistortedSmile two months later.
- Bolt member Kat_Fan harassed and cyberbullied other members throughout 2001-2005, until he was forever banned from ever interacting the website by the new bolt.com staff until its closing in 2007.
- The Badge Race Club was one of the most influential clubs that had the highest participation ratios per member count and even spawned a rival club Badge Wars create by former members when they were banned.
- Bolt.com had an email service that launched twice and was removed twice. For a short time, it had video capabilities. The video feature is now a prominent feature in the new bolt.com and is not available on the bolt2.com site.
- Bolt created a website for 7-up called Gulpit.com in November 25, 2002 that featured bottle caps instead of badges. It was poorly maintained and only visited when a bottle cap was offered that also featured a badge. After 3 bottle caps the site has never updated again. It has since been taken down as of March 4, 2005.
- Angry Bolt users created a site called Boltsucks.com in response to the message board being taken down during the revamp in 2004. During this time, they created their own badges, including a very vulgar badge for telling off a bolt staff member. After the Bolt message board came back online, participation at Boltsucks.com dwindled and the site eventually failed.
- In recent months, the site has been overrun by hackers who have given themselves the powers of moderators and have taken to deleting the posts of those they do not favor. This, coupled with the neglect from the site's owners, has resulted in even the most loyal veterans deciding to move on from the site, which is rumoured to be closing in the near future.
- Bolt2 used to have "radio stations" and members who submitted songs that they wanted to hear on Bolt Radio received the bolt dj badge.