Deeplocal is a mobile software design, development, and strategy studio.

Deeplocal Partners with Nike and Lance Armstrong - Builds "Chalkbot" for Tour de France

Chalkbot

Developed by Deeplocal and StandardRobot, Chalkbot is a key element in Nike’s LIVESTRONG campaign for the 2009 Tour de France.

Supporters in the U.S. and France can text inspirational messages for bicyclists that will be printed in yellow chalk by Chalkbot on the roads of the Tour de France.

Chalkbot on Nike.com
Chalkbot on Twitter
Chalkbot Photo Gallery
Chalkbot Nike Press Release
Chalkbot in the News
Follow DeepLocal CTO David Evans in France

We bring together artists, designers, and technologists to solve complex communication problems with a focus on usability and simplicity.

Why don’t you focus on one thing?

Our team possesses a wide range of skills and interests, and we see strong connections between design, development, and consulting. Utilizing our own platform, called Gumband, allows us to build and deploy new sites, services, and technologies quickly. We invent great tools by working with real clients to solve real problems.

For this reason, we focus on core platform development while building front-end solutions for clients in entertainment, marketing, content-delivery, and transit. By budgeting our time wisely, we have created innovative new products while remaining fully dedicated to our clients’ success.

Our company’s work has been featured and recognized by Print Magazine, American Venture Magazine, Technology Review, the Peoria Prize Committee, the City of Pittsburgh, the AIGA, and MIT Press.

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What makes you so special?

We are not a typical software company. We like to refer to ourselves as “gutter technologists.” We consider the problem first, and the technology second. This allows us to use the lowest common denominator technology to solve any particular problem. Our background in the arts and DIY music culture informs our behavior, and we function more like a band than a company.

Due to our unique blend of new product development, consulting, and design, we don’t need to sell our clients on any single technology. Our Gumband platform is robust and allows us to move information around freely, remaining receptive to drastic changes.

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Why so much focus on art?

Our company is operated by an artist, and we don’t mean someone who paints on the side. Our CEO ran both an art group called the Carbon Defense League and a metal band called Creation is Crucifixion for nearly a decade.

Deeplocal began as an art project, run out of Carnegie Mellon University’s art and technology research lab (the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry). Our team cares about art, and we and we see tremendous value in keeping great employees in Pittsburgh, working with us. Our interest in art recently spawned our own artist residency program that we hope to see larger entities adopt.

We think like artists because we are artists. We ignore rules and common wisdom and experiment freely, which allows us to be both innovative and efficient.

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How did you become a company?

Deeplocal spun out of a Carnegie Mellon University art and technology research lab, following more than three years of research into local and collaborative information collection, storage, and visualization. Deeplocal holds an exclusive license to the MapHub software product, which we developed during our time at CMU. Our company’s client list includes Carnegie Mellon University, Gigapan.org, TheMotherhood.com, Post-Gazette.com, Port Authority of Allegheny County, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and Kennywood Entertainment.

Before we were a company, we were an art group called Carbon Defense League. If you Google around you will come across some pretty high-profile projects we did from the late 90’s into the mid 00’s. We built a site for barcode swapping called Re-Code.com that drew the ire of Wal-Mart and was documented with some videos licensed by FreeSpeechTV. We tried to overturn GWB in 04 with our sexiness through the FtheVote.com campaign that made light of the awkward situation of voting between bad and worse. We hacked the Gameboy and built our own game and development kit that we used to replace games on store shelves. The work has appeared in major media outlets including Keith Olberman’s Top 10, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, etc.

We were a legit research project for almost 3 years at CMU where we developed the MapHub software. MapHub is/was a collaborative mapping tool for privately adding and managing places on an online map. We worked at that time with a lot of community and economic development groups and got really involved in city life here in Pittsburgh. After spinning out of CMU with a focus on commercializing MapHub, we faced an emerging worldwide interest in online mapping that we were not able to capitalize on and were instead forced to reinvent our company. We emerged from that experience stronger and much smarter about the commercialization process. Having experienced the difficulty of huge and complex, we now focus on small and simple.

So we can be summed up as a band turned art group turned research project turned company; if that is in fact a summation.

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Press

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News

  • May. 13, 2009 – Deeplocal launches Flrti.com: Flirt with locals over Text Message (Flrti.com)
  • Apr. 20, 2009 – Deeplocal CEO featured in BBC gameshow to be screened April 30th at Melwood Screening Room (announcement)
  • Apr. 1, 2009 – Gumband API and new deeplocal website launched! (Gumband API)
  • Mar. 20, 2009 – T.Foley and Allen Hahn named Corporate Artists in Residence (announcement)
  • Feb. 4, 2009 – RouteShout.com: Bus Arrival Times by Mobile Phone Service Being Tested in Pittsburgh (announcement | routeshout.com)

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