Hollywood-based Hop-on Inc. is acquiring Vertuoso, an entertainment company specializing in vertical storytelling, content marketing, branded content, ad-tech and social and digital marketing, said Peter Michaels, CEO, Hop-on, Inc., and Curt Doty, founder of Vertuoso, on Thursday.

Vertuoso’s clients include Viacom and its entertainment brands Nickelodeon, BET, MTV Hop-on plans to integrate Vertuoso’s vertical storytelling capabilities into its decentralized social media, entertainment and journalism platform Digitalage.

Hop-on’s acquisition of Vertuoso will provide Hop-on with a suite of capabilities by which to further Digitalage’s expertise with a “mobile-first” focus on premium ads, said Michaels and Doty. These ads will be designed to deliver interactive and immersive experiences that will pave the way towards advertising in augmented and virtual reality.

“This acquisition of Vertuoso will provide our users, advertisers, publishers, and other content providers with the tools they need to place and create innovative ads through self-service and innovate trending tech into a new user experience,” said Michaels in a statement. “This is key in our ongoing efforts to evolve content, tech and advertising into Web 3.0 and the Creator Economy, and thus creating a new, online middle class.

“As Vertuoso becomes the umbrella advertising brand for Digitalage, Digitalage will also offer a ‘First Look Deal’ to the stable of content creators with IP that Vertuoso has already developed relationships with during the last four years. This will give Vertuoso a jump in its development slate for original, immersive content that we can integrate into our Digitalage platform,” Michaels added.

“We are very excited about the future of Digitalage and its promise of decentralization, along with a fair and equitable economy,” said Doty (pictured above), also in a statement. “I have been extremely impressed by their futuristic understanding of how technology will lift up and democratize content creation and distribution. I personally have a great deal of experience living at the edge of innovation, and I thrive when the worlds of content, design and tech collide into new points of innovation. To me, Digitalage is sure to become that new world.”

Tags: digitalage hop-on vertuoso


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