Targeting the millions of teens worldwide (not to mention their wallets), Bolt.com has a lofty goal: to become the No. 1 global teen brand. The company has been well on its way to achieving that goal since Dan Pelson founded Bolt in 1997 as part of Concrete Media; today, the independent Bolt boasts more than 1.5 million registered members, mostly between the ages of 13 and 21. Site features include a daily horoscope, free e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, and a Bolt store that sells merchandise from partners such as Mooks and Dollhouse. Bolt's potent combination of chat and commerce made the company's teen dreams come true when it filed for a $46 million IPO in December 1999.

Teen-authored content

To many teens, Bolt's appeal lies in its authenticity - more than 95 percent of material on the site is written by their peers, not Bolt employees. That authenticity also appeals to advertisers, who get raw feedback on everything from whether McDonald's or Burger King has better hamburgers to whether Britney Spears is still hot to what teens are doing on New Year's Eve. And because Bolt's audience is composed of such a wide range of teenagers, advertisers are able to target their ads to specific age groups and localities (Bolt members must provide their birthdate and zip code when registering). In addition, the company tracks its members' movement through the site. While Bolt doesn't use individual users' real names, advertisers can nonetheless target an ad, for example, to females under 18 living in the Northeast who visited the Poetry & Writing section of the site in November 1999.

Brits n' Britney

While the company has an established presence in the United States, company CEO Pelson is hoping to expand Bolt's popularity worldwide. Bolt already has over 60,000 members in Britain - its largest concentration outside of North America - and the global numbers are growing rapidly, with 25 percent of the site's audience coming from outside the U.S.

Growing stronger