The Week in Technology

Hotwire has been given the brief to run lastminute.com's Unleash Summer campaign. The agency will conduct a social media consultancy campaign targeting blogs and networking sites including Flickr and Facebook. The campaign will run until the end of summer. Hotwire digital director Drew Benvie is in charge of the account. Benvie will work with Elena Antoniou, head of UK PR for lastminute.com.

Parker, Wayne and Kent, the London-based PR agency, has published research indicating that PROs still believe offline media coverage is the most influential, despite rival studies identifying the internet as being a more powerful medium. 'We found that most PROs rank print and television ahead of online in terms of influence,' said a spokesman for PW&K. Only one in ten of those questioned believed that offline coverage was becoming less relevant to PR campaigns.

Lucre communications has been hired by Belkin, the wireless network and software accessories manufacturer, as its UK PR agency. Lucre will spend the next six months working on a media relations campaign to reacquaint Belkin with the consumer and technology press. 'Initially the campaign is going to be product-focused,' said Sophie Spyropoulos, director at Lucre. 'Belkin has not had a PR agency for some time. We will do more brand work later on.'

Racepoint Group has appointed two new directors. Ben Philipson, previously at Hotwire, has been hired as a client director and will lead Racepoint's consumer tech team. Caroline Tarbett is associate director and will work in Racepoint's telecoms and mobile sectors. Tarbett was previously in charge of the Microsoft account for August.One Communications.