The acquisition gives GoFish access to Bolt’s online short video distribution channels like the website Bolt.com, which also includes photo sharing and blogging.

Bolt’s client list includes prominent brands like Coke, Verizon and Nike. In 2006 the company reported about $7 million in sales. GoFish hopes to combine Bolt’s assets with its own original programming, which includes content like interactive reality show America’s Dream Date.

“Bolt is one of the Internet’s great youth brands and a perfect fit for GoFish,” said GoFish CEO Michael Downing in a statement. “Bolt’s blue chip advertisers recognize that the company excels at marketing to online communities. We wanted to acquire a large, creative audience to interact and participate in our original programming, as well as a sales organization to package these shows for premium advertisers. We expect Bolt to deliver on both fronts.”

The merger will create one of the largest video companies online with a combined monthly audience of about 19 million from around the world, according to comScore.

The merger has been given the OK by both companies and should be completed in April or March 2007, once its approved by Bolt stockholders

While both sites play host to the content-creating and content-sharing habits of nearly all online youth, Bolt Media found it difficult to maintain an appropriate message and relevant advertising for such a wide range of ages. “We couldn’t sit here and say we have stuff that’s appropriate for 9-year-olds and stuff that’s appropriate for 30-year-olds,” said Bolt Media CEO Aaron Cohen. “It’s not fair to the consumers, and it’s not fair to the advertisers.”

Bolt has not yet commented on whether or not the move is related to the recent stream of controversy over social networking rival Myspace.com, which has been used by sexual predators to target young users who overexpose personal information. Explicitly separating younger users from the mature crowd by creating two different sites could be an effective solution to this problem.