... Messages can be sent between members (called "bolt notes") instantly, and an email address (your membername @ bolt.com) is provided free. There's so many features to bolt it's easy to get immersed in it. Because the content is all interesting and relevant, you find yourself returning every ... Read review
Advantages: Good content, nice people, lots of members. Disadvantages: Evil capitalist marketing scam.
...suits.) and market to, and bolt.com partners up with Proctor and Gamble, Kodak, AT&T, American Express, and AOL. 4 million users give all of their details, their demographics, their interests.. With every tagbook question youth opinion is being gauged. The polls on the front page are usually quite focused, but every now and again they'll say something like "what do you want to see in a car?" or "how much money do you spend on CDs a ... ...databases is worth billions, literally, and the entire purpose of Bolt's site might well be simply to do this.
So, cynical marketing trick or valuable youth community? I think that as long as the commercialism is kept hidden, there's just enough good stuff to keep me coming back. ... more
Bolt is an online community for teenagers and college students. With over 210 million page views a month, and 4 million members, it's a busy site. Members sign up with a simple screename, and every member gets the following in their profile:
"About me", a place to list your interests and tell other members about yourself. A diary section that allows you to keep a passworded electronic diary on your account. Useful! "Tagbook" that lets the users pose questions that the rest of bolt can answer by viewing your profile.
Users can gain badges by participating, and the vast majority of bolt's content is generated by bolt's members. Messages can be sent between members (called "bolt notes") instantly, and an email address (your membername @ bolt.com) is provided free. There's so many features to bolt it's easy to get immersed in it. Because the content is all interesting and relevant, you find yourself returning every day to read more. I've been a member for a year and in that time i've designed a tee shirt for their membermade scheme, and i get posted a nice royalty cheque every month! good stuff. (Although, at present, they do owe me 2 months royalties! grr.. ) Most of a users time on bolt is spend reading articles, posting to one of the hundreds of busy message boards, or chatting in the excellent custom chat feature.
Of course bolt is free to use, and they make their money from advertisers. Here comes the slightly sinister part. Teenagers and the youth culture have always been difficult for companies to gauge (primarily because large firms are made up of old, fat men in suits.) and market to, and bolt.com partners up with Proctor and Gamble, Kodak, AT&T, American Express, and AOL. 4 million users give all of their details, their demographics, their interests.. With every tagbook question youth opinion is being gauged. The polls on the front page are usually quite focused, but every now and again they'll say something like "what do you want to see in a car?" or "how much money do you spend on CDs a week". The information that can be mined out of Bolt's databases is worth billions, literally, and the entire purpose of Bolt's site might well be simply to do this.
So, cynical marketing trick or valuable youth community? I think that as long as the commercialism is kept hidden, there's just enough good stuff to keep me coming back.
Ever since I got the Internet in November of last year, Bolt has been like a second home to me. I was just messing around on a search engine one day when it popped up onto my screen like magic, and from that moment I was hooked. If you take a look for yourself then you’ll understand why. But if that isn’t enough to entice you then I guess I’ll just have to explain exactly why Bolt is without doubt one of the best sites on the web. ... ...on Earth is it then?’ That’s a good question, and one that isn’t entirely easy for me to answer. If I was forced to give Bolt a label then I suppose I would describe it as a message board forum aimed at teenagers and young adults, but Bolt is far more than that alone. Among many things, the site provides free email, polls and quizzes, chat rooms and daily horoscopes. Let me tell you exactly why I like Bolt so much. Well, they say ...
Psammead 01.09.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of bolt.com
Advantages: Colour and different things to do Disadvantages: Needs small down load so doesn't woek at college
ukbolt.com and bolt.com
I don't really use this site anymore as it can be quite slow and the computers at school wont load the chat, but when I used the chat site at home it is a quite good one. The layout and design is good and there are hundreds of rooms to choice from. You can even create your own room and lock it when you have everyone you want in it for privacy and security.
This chat site allows you to use different colours in your speech ... ...number of other features including such as bolt notes and searches so you can match friends to your interests. You can also post discussions on interesting topics, keep a diary (private or public) and write pieces for there boards and you can recieve badges and merdit if you do well.
Bolt attracts young people from all over the world with a wide age range from under 12 to mid twenties. This means that for teenagers such as myself it gives a range ...
Ethak 10.11.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of bolt.com
Advantages: has everything u need Disadvantages: it's a little slow
bolt.com is a great site to vist, it lets u keep a personal profile, comunicate with other via the site and lets u chat to others as well. you can check out your horoscopes and even compare them to your b/f's or g/f's horoscope to see if u match each other, people in bolt also keep personal message boards, called tag book, they post questions and ask u nicely if u will sign it! thats another good thing about bolt.com, it is a nice friendly site, ...
sophie14 03.09.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of bolt.com
Advantages: Very various. Disadvantages: Useless stuff included and a bit slow sometimes
...from all over the world. Bolt.com has several abilities: the bolt notes, a e-mail server, countless chatrooms, a webhosting service, the famous bolt boards and many other options. The bolt notes are for small notes to send to other members. The e-mail server is of course for e-mail. One of the most important things here is that you don't get any junkmail. There are chatrooms for the members and the boards are messenge boards with topics variating ...
SerraPaladin 29.07.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of bolt.com
Advantages: lot of fun, great way to make friends Disadvantages: can get bitchy
I happened across bolt.com during a long, tedious lunchtime at school.
The site is basically a huge international on-line community where you can send people notes, e-mails, instant messenger messages, post on the boards, take part in surveys, create a member profile, play games, and much more.
First, of course, you have to register. I'm now on my third ID, with about my millionth icon.
It doen't cost to register, though if you wish to upgrade ... ...==Layout==
The site is a bit cramped, with a lot being put onto each page. The left hand side is the navigation panel, where you simply click the link related to where you want to go. ==Advertising==
Because the site is free, Bolt uses a large amount of sponsorship to pay for its running. You therefor are often bombarded with pop-up adds, banners, and subtle little hints throughout the site.
==overall performance==
The site is generally ok, though ...
traceyesayer 27.02.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of bolt.com
