The company formerly known as Moderati spreads its wings.
You may know Moderati as the mobile firm responsible for nearly 10 million downloads of the Virtual Zippo Lighter iPhone app. Or as the company whose Romplr platform teamed rapper 50 Cent with Vitaminwater for an iPhone remix app.
However, you won't know it as Moderati any more: the company took the wrappers off its rebrand to Skyrockit this week. It now claims to be the first 'full-service mobile entertainment agency'.
ME caught up with CEO Jon Vlassopulos to find out what this means. "It's beyond being a digital agency, a mobile content company or a mobile marketing firm," he says.
"What we see from working with our entertainment clients and our brand or agency clients is that media companies are becoming brand managers, and brands are becoming media producers. We sit in the middle of all that."
The company certainly has experience - it launched in 2001, and made its name in the polyphonic ringtones space. Nowadays, the company's focus is much more about apps, of course.
"It's about creating these entertainment experiences that will be monetised, and branded experiences that although they can be monetised, are also about engagement."
Skyrockit is looking beyond iPhone too - Vlassopulos says the company has already been working with Nokia to launch branded entertainment apps on Ovi Store.
"They can offer these partners preloads on 20 million handsets, which is huge," he says. "With Apple, it's a little bit more roll-the-dice on getting promotional support on the App Store."
Skyrockit certainly isn't alone in seeing the potential and demand for branded mobile apps on iPhone and rival platforms. Does Vlassopulos see competition coming from the more traditional creative agencies, as they ramp up their mobile divisions?
He agrees, although points out that some of these big agencies are partners for a company like Skyrockit, while others may be hampered by being restricted to their existing clients.
"The nice thing for us is we can pick and choose our clients around interesting projects, and look to move the needle with every company that we work with."
Vlassopulos is also unconcerned by gloomy talk of overcrowding on the App Store, and the difficulty of cutting through the 140,000 apps already available.
"Remember back in 1995, when there were 100,000 websites online? Imagine the world now if everyone had stopped then," he says.
"This is the beginning for apps, and it's absolutely not too late if you focus on your brand objectives, and do it with someone who knows what they're doing."
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