Bolt is Back... Forever

[Bolt Restarter]

Hi All,

As many of you may know or suspected, the old Bolt.com infrastructure was just too clunky and expensive to operate without a serious overhaul. The cost of running the old system was many times the revenue the site generated. As a result, it was just a matter of time before the site had to die again. Well, this time Bolt doesn't have to die ever again. While I cannot promise this social network will always be available at bolt.com (We are very lucky the new owners of the domain let us put this network up at all, even for a moment... Collective Thank You!!! Unfortunately, the domain Bolt.com may be too expensive to use forever), I can promise this version will never die. Whatever happens to Bolt.com, I guarantee, this version of Bolt will always be available forever at Bolt3.com. So... Whisper Bolt3.com to your friends if you want to keep them ;) ....And again, thank you to the owners of Bolt.com for being so cool!

Details... I cannot promise any amount of moderation or oversite on this network as there are no resources or time to do this... so: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Haha... I will be upgrading the site on weekends though so keep your eye open for changes when I get the time.

I hope you enjoy getting back together!

Bolt Restarter
(A friend of Bolt.com and BrennaB)

[Ariannah Taylor]

Wat's good , haven't been on here -N- a while but i'm back


R.K.B

[Foxybabylove]

I mis the original bolt.com before bolt2 and this one. It was the first 'networking' site I ever joined. I stopped using it when it became bolt2. Didn't like it. The original bolt.com was different and unique. Wish you could bring that one back. It may be out dated in fashion but like I said it was unique. I know several people from the original bolt that would come back if it was more like the original.

[Michael Lacy]

@BoltRestarter

did you ever work at bolt? i was the lead developer from 2004-mid 2005. Converted the old ASP site to Java and then laid the foundation for Bolt2.

Glad to see that this still lives. Bring back tagbooks. Highest trafficked application on the old site ;)

[no1bone]

I am very stoked, now which staffer are you :P

I can only offer software testing resources. Want to develop but don't have the time this time around. Thanks a bunch though

[DaPrettyPoet]

Well I'll def make sure to tell everyone I know to sign up

[Bolt Restarter]

Reposted from a private comment:

Hey! Interested in what you think you could do... Basic answers though to your questions: Bolt was built to be a very big site. As such it's architecture is massive and requires no fewer than 6 servers to run anything at all. In addition, it requires a massive Cisco switch that takes up almost a full rack at a hosting center. There are a couple other pieces involved. As a result of all of this, $3K for hosting is perhaps high, but not unreasonable. Then with all the separate pieces and a notoriously fragile operating system, monthly maintenance to fix crashes is required. All that said, the code is available... Perhaps I can figure a way to convince the owners to consider making the code open source or something...

[Bolt Restarter]

I have access to every Bolt code base ever built... So the answer is all of them. Unfortunately, I have the code but not the money to do anything with it :(

[Jason]

Bolt Restarted first of all thanks for your desire and hard work to get this all back up and running. I have to agree with the others when they say 'bring the old bolt back'. What you have now I just can't see working. It is simply reiventing the wheel and has been done to death. Original Bolt was something different..something unique that at the time was a leader of its generation. It is encouraging to here that the original site and code is still intact. I am having trouble understanding why it would cost so much to get it back up and running.

From memory it ran on asp? I am a web developer and am fairly sure I would be able to set it all back up myself if I was given the required applications and databases. 3K a month for hosting seems absurd not to mention 15k a month to maintain and 20k to monitor. Why is this money required? Is there anyone who i can speak to about this? I would also love to help to get Bolt back to where it was before it fell into a heap and am willing to offer my expertise.

[Bolt Restarter]

Hey all, I certainly can appreciate the desire to bring the old Bolt back. The good news is the code is actually still safe... So, it is technically possible to relaunch the old site... Unfortunately, the estimated cost for bringing back that old version is around $30K for the setup and another $3K per month to host. This doesn't include about $15K a month to keep it running 95% of the time (the code is not all that stable), or another $10K - $20K a month to monitor and police. Advertising on the site generates only a fraction of the money it costs to pay for all of this... So... The only way we can bring back the old site is to charge users a subscription.... Heck, if there are enough people willing to pay some cash I'll make it happen. Unfortunately, the old site is very expensive, while this one is free. The second cheaper option for everyone is that if enough people start coming back here, and it begins to generate enough advertising cash... Then perhaps we can afford to bring back that old version.

In the meantime, unfortunately, I am just one person who likes Bolt and did the best he could to at least bring this version back. I'd love to do more, but I'd have to send around a hat to collect some cash first :) Meantime, lets enjoy this version and if things get bigger - the owners of the old code have assured me they will donate it free if we ever could pay engineers to set it up. Make sense? I'm definitely open to suggestions!

[LadyD]

I agree with Heath_H. The old format will attract a lot of the old regs.