Welcome to the new digital look of evolyte.  As one of our many new year’s resolutions for 2012, the company website was built with much love and in a push to expand into a creative outlet for talented, ambitious individuals across the United States from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and our hometown of Sioux City, Iowa.  Our goal for 2012 is to have physical presence in Chicago, New York, and Sioux City.  It will happen, mark our words.

As for the website, this is the first time that we are publicly mentioning many of our clients and project works.  We are so incredibly thankful for our incredible roster of clients who have been so trusting, understanding, and supportive of us over the course of our company life.  We’ve gone through many growing pains as all companies do, experiencing a lot of successes and plenty of failures.  All of which have helped to define who we are as people and as a company.  Our culture is one that embraces transformation.  By accepting the challenging journey and process of building a company, our company culture has been humanized.  We understand defeat.  We have felt chaos and experienced shutting down an office.  We have also lived with saying things we probably shouldn’t have and kept our lips sealed when we should have spoken.  We tried things that others would not even dare to consider trying.  Sometimes we right.  Sometimes we were wrong.

To date, we are proud of the journey we have had and very much look forward to the beautiful horizon ahead of us.  We want to thank our clients for all that they have allowed us to do for them, apologize to anyone for any mistakes we may have made to date, and encourage anyone who has not yet inquired about who we are, what we do, and how we can help to give us a call or send us a note.

From the bottom of our hearts, we will continue to work hard for our existing and future clients, spend our time and energies building out our own emerging technologies for the consumer marketplace, and do our best to improve as both individuals and as a company.

Thank you for being you and we appreciate you all.

We just realized we never put this on our blog.  We built it about 6 months ago, never really marketed it heavily, but it still has a core group of users.

People have used it to express their joys and pains on death, suicide, cancer, anorexia, sexuality, relationships, and almost everything under the sun.  Give it a try, the purpose was to make you feel better

http://confideapp.com

We’re Lazy, We Don’t Want to Wait for the Weather to Load

Weather Notifier Get push notifications with the current temp, forecast, and chance of rain for any city in the US.  For example, set a daily alert for 8:00am Chicago and wake up to the weather! You never have to open the app again.  It even looks good in Apple’s new iOS5 notification center:

Sick of Ugly Digital Clocks? Let’s Get Creative.

Design O’Clock Spice up your desk, nightstand, or kitchen with a series of beautifully designed clocks, inspired by famous artists and our local sailing club. You can also submit ideas for your own creative clocks!

While these are both customized for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it also works on your iPad (remember, there’s no native weather app so get notified there too

Blasting Off on an Urban Airship

Weather Notifier relies heavily on one very important, yet often overlooked, piece of technology:  push notifications.

We’ve relied heavily on our friends at Urban Airship, a platform that allows us to leverage their pre-built systems for push notifications, which are extremely scalable.  And the best part is it’s free until we start sending over 1 million notifications a month!

Man, we hate things that save us time, don’t fail, and grow as our demand grows.  Just like how Apple always boots up so fast and never crashes.  We just hate that.

The best part?  They contacted us to see if we were having any issues, if they could help in any way, and if they could help market our apps.  Ummm, let me think…ok, sure.

So What’s Next? We’re Going Bananas for Stocks

We loved our service so much with Urban Airship we’ve decided to double down on the marriage between our technology and theirs.  Coming soon is the sister app to Weather Notifier, called Stock Notifier.  I think you can figure out where this is headed…

You know we’ve got mad love for the 80s and Bananarama (it really is a cruel summer), so next up after that?  Let’s get crazy:  Bananatime…

Evolyte:  apps to save time or make time fly.

Agency Raises $100 Billion Dollars to Make iPhone Apps
Trillion Dollar Valuation Makes Investor Break-Even Point Somewhere in 2080

CHICAGO, IL, May 31, 2011 – evolyte (http://evolyte.com), a digital agency has just raised $100 billion dollars to continue their efforts at interacting with the online world in an offline way. “This kind of money didn’t even exist in 1969”, exclaims the President to Doctor Evil.  The Managing Partners managed to partner with a social media guru, who helped legal up the term sheet, and a lawyer who organized the twitter road show.

Their apps are social (you can talk about it on Facebook), mobile (you can take your phone anywhere), local (there you are:  that’s where you are, you’re there) and shares photos (use your friend’s phone to take a picture)! Aside from where the next dance party will be, questions still remain:  will investors possibly see a return, will hypercolor tees ever come back in style, can Evolyte pivot to a new M.V.P. before next year’s Techcrunch Disrupt?  Learn more and get your swag on at http://evolyte.com.

About Evolyte
Behavioral marketers building rad websites and gnarly iPhone apps.

From the visionaries who brought you such literal hits as “39 Seconds of Swag” and “Say Bye Bye Bye to Bad SEO”, Evolyte helps brands and individuals build awareness and increase sales using standard tools in unique ways:  design, iPhone apps, websites, search engine optimization, social media, video, and guerilla.  Clients stay strictly confidential but range from early stage start-ups to billion dollar banks and multinational manufacturers.

They are also members of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. No big deal.

Contact:
Jeff Ringgenberg
Managing Partner
evolyte
+1 312.578.1565
jeff.ringgenberg@evolyte.com

http://evolyte.com
http://twitter.com/evolyte
http://facebook.com/evolyte

If you’re a developer, then you already understand everything we’re about to say, as it’s analogous to your development stack. If not, here’s a brief breakdown of the Evolyte Stack (this is layered, from top to bottom):

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — SEO is one of the most efficient ways to get your website to rank on the first page of Google for various keyword search terms, and we’re VERY good at it.  Because it’s a business traditionally filled with fear and confusion, and there are thousands of snake-oil salesmen out there that will lie and provide no value, we don’t lead with this part of our business.  We are not a commodity, rather we used our mathematical and algorithmic expertise and our decades of experience on the internet to build a network of sites and links that we point to your site.  We built this for ourselves, but clients kept asking to use it so we decided to open it up to select businesses.
• iOS (iPhone/iPad Operating System) — This one’s pretty simple.  We build iPhone and iPad apps for ourselves and for clients.  We’ve got a few tricks upu our sleeves, stay tuned
• PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) — And yes, the first ‘P’ does indeed stand for PHP, lol.  PHP is Evolyte’s preferred development language as it’s native to the web and built into HTML (did you know that the acronymn originally stood for Personal Home Page?).  You’re all familiar with PHP without even knowing as Facebook is built on it.  Ruby on Rails gets all the limelight these days, but PHP has been around since the early days of the web (1994) and will be here for the foreseeable future.  Finally, PHP can also function as the middleware that communicates data between your website and your iPhone/iPad app.
• CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets, Level 3) — This is the most recent implementation of CSS, which “styles” the web (i.e., the formatting, look and feel).  For example, here’s a bit of CSS3 in action:  3D Text this is not an image designed in photoshop, rather everything is done with CSS3 code.  Only modern browsers are able to render this code, which is why all web designers and developers hate Internet Explorer 6 (die IE6, die).
• HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language, Level 5) –Similar to CSS3, this is the most recent addition to the code base that allows dynamic content (e.g., audio, video, graphics) to be embedded directly through HTML, thereby bypassing the need for Flash.  The best part about this is it renders on your iPhone/iPad in mobile Safari without the need for any plugins or special apps/jailbreaking.  The coolest use of HTML5 we’ve seen to date is Ben The Bodyguard (if you really want to be blown away, open this on your smartphone).  Again, this is only supported in modern browsers, so IE6 should just jump off a bridge. Kthanks.

We layered this t-shirt from top to bottom because that’s what Evolyte does, for clients and for ourselves.  You may be familar with our description of what we do found on our website:

We’re behavioral marketers (SEO, live action, guerrilla, PR, strategy, pricing, Social Media etc) building gnarly iPhone apps (iOS) and rad websites (HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP).

Marketing requires multiple tools, all working together to create feedback loops and increasing market awareness, ultimately resulting in increase sales and revenue.

We love having a crazy amount of fun, but we also recognize that there are many people less fortunate than ourselves who may have lost their way. As soon as we step out of our office in downtown Chicago, we’re confronted with countless homeless men and women asking for a bit of spare change or leftovers from lunch.

We made a commitment to help them, help themselves.

Instead of cash or food, we give them our business cards with our address and cell phone numbers.  “Call us, we’ll help you find a job.”, we say.  In return we see a flash of shock cross their face, almost as if no one has given them the time of day in years. Last night, a man said to me, “Oh wow, seriously? This is exactly what I need!”

It’s pretty shocking to see the reactions.  What if your brother, sister, mother, father lost their job, their car, their home, and even their will to live or to have a dream?  Would you turn the other way?  Would you throw money at the problem?  Or would you do something about it?

We’re trying to do something about it.  Unfortunately, no one has yet to stop by or call us, but we’re not giving up.

Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime…

On that note, a new technology startup just launched called Joinable that gives the homeless free voicemail, email, and text messaging. We highly recommend these folks and their technology.

evolyfe.

This isn’t the only evolyfe initiative we’re involved in, we have a few others:

• Harley Helping Hands — a Chicagoland nonprofit providing financial support for adults with brain cancer.  Buy tickets to the April 29th event.
• Chicago Youth Centers — a Chicagoland nonprofit investing in youth in underserved Chicago neighborhoods to help them discover and realize their full potential–from early childhood education to and through college.  Buy tickets to the May 19th event.
• Bear Necessities — a national nonprofit focused on eliminating brain cancer.  Vote on pictures or donate here.
• Siouxland Cares (United Way) — What kind of an Iowan would we be if we didn’t give back to the community that helped raise and educate us (FINE:  First in the Nation in Education)?

These are the nonprofits we’ve been focused on lately, and have helped a few others over the years. If you need help with your nonprofit, or just want to chat, give us a shout, we’d love to lend a helping hand. Or an ear.

Oh, you thought we were actually cool and never geeked out on some Yoda?  Yah, Skywalker > Captain Picard.  Without further ado, from Psychology Today:

We’ll start with the “that’s not all” technique. Discount coupons are offered that seem to reduce prices to such a ridiculous degree that the price of an item seems too good to pass up. Consider the hypothetical case of a “keepsake” holiday ornament that cost the retailer $10.00. The retailer’s desired profit is $2.00. The original price on the sales tag is $20.00 with no markdown included. While you’re studying the sales tag, the salesperson comes over and announces that today there is a special offer of a 20% discount ($4.00). Sounds good to you, but it’s still more than you want to pay. The salesperson now offers you an extra 10% off the 20% (because you’re wearing red), bringing the price down to $14.40. Deal! The retailer has made more than the desired profit and you feel great because you “saved” $5.60.

Now let’s look next at the “not-so-free-sample.” This occurs when a salesperson, for example, at a cosmetics counter, gives you a little bottle of cologne or a complementary makeup application. Perhaps at the grocery store you are offered a little piece of cheese or fruit. No obligation to buy! Despite the fact that you have no need for any more Chanel No. 5, night cream, or fancy cheese, you feel an overwhelming urge to buy it anyway. Later, you examine your purchase and wonder what on earth you were thinking. This was the last thing you wanted or needed. But there’s also a chance that eventually you will become wedded to the product and become loyal to the brand. … Why does this work? You’ve been given something, seemingly for nothing, and now you feel obligated to reciprocate by buying the item.

In the “foot-in-the-door” technique you buy someone a gift-perhaps the perfect hat-the one that will make your mother, girlfriend, husband, etc. supremely happy. … In one of the studies demonstrating this technique, researchers went house to house, asking homeowners if they would fill out a brief survey. Most people agreed. Then the researchers came back and asked if they could go through every cabinet in the kitchen to see what products were being used, a process that took 2 hours. Having said yes to the small favor, the householders were more likely to agree to the large one.

Similar to foot-in-the-door is “low balling.” You are told that an item is a certain price and you agree to buy it at that price, supposedly vastly below retail. Before you plunk down your hard or plastic cash, the salesperson announces that there was an error. The price is actually slightly higher or the deal that was promised won’t be approved by the manager. Now what are you supposed to do? You said you wanted the item. Now it’s going to cost you a few dollars more. … In a study demonstrating low-balling, researchers asked potential participants to be in a study to help a student in need of volunteers. After they agreed to be in the study, the researchers then informed the potential participants that the study would take place at 7 am (a notoriously early time for college students). If they now declined to participate they would look like they didn’t’ really want to help.

Are you seeing yourself in any of these scenarios yet? If not, hold on- there’s one more. In what’s called the “door-in-the-face,” you tell a salesperson that you want to buy a videogame for someone in your family. The salesperson takes you over to the display case and excitedly tells you about the latest and greatest to hit the stores, such as Call of Duty Black Ops. It also happens to be well over what you thought it would cost when you made the decision to buy the game. Then the salesperson shows you another game that’s considerably cheaper but still more than you planned to spend. Now that you said no to the first item, you are more likely to say yes to the second which, in comparison, seems cheap. In the original research on the door-in-the-face technique, students were asked to volunteer all day to help a local agency (the “door”). Most people said no, but they were more likely to agree to help for a few hours than if they hadn’t been asked to volunteer for the whole day.