Are YouTubers influencers too?

Last month, it was leaked that Microsoft is embarking on an influencer programme, whereby YouTubers  affiliated with the prolific YouTube gaming network Machinima, would be paid an extra $3 per 1000 views (on top of what they make from their ad revenues) to positively promote the Xbox One. Any v...

Predictive Shipping or Predictable Slip-up?

A couple of weeks ago , the tech headlines were buzzing with news about the next evolution in online shopping, with  Amazon announcing the latest ace that it’s busily been stuffing up its sleeve; the patent for ‘predictive shopping’. As the name suggests, the idea is to use a range of customer inf...

Dear journalism, we still need you, love from, PR.

I recently read an article by Ian Burrell bemoaning the prospects of the journalism industry, arguing that it’s slowly being killed off by PR itself – he’s by far the first to make this claim. Referring to the ‘churnalism’ of Nick Davies’ infamous Flat Earth News, Burrell argues that the tempestuo...

Tech PRs should drink more

Carrying on from Al’s crowdsourcing post on what a tech PR wants for Christmas I thought I would ask around the office on what new year’s resolutions people had. Here is a selection of what some of the Spark team would like to achieve in 2014:

Drink more – Not one you would expect to see as a n...

Press coverage is a competitive business in tech PR

We all know how tough the current media landscape is, but when we are talking about competition we mean Friday afternoons at Spark.  Since the agency started we’ve awarded a highly prized cup (It’s only a small gold painted plastic thing) to the best piece of client coverage achieved that week.  Eac...