The internet has revolutionized human life by being able to provide instant and quick access to information. Not only that, it has also improved how we communicate with others via our social media networks, e-mail addresses and voice chats. It has also improved the everyday services that we usually encounter—from banking, booking plane tickets, and even conducting business and the bigger picture of retail marketing.

This is episode 1 of the TechZulu Tech Wrap. Produced by PodShare’s Elvina Beck and Kera Package for June 20-July 6, 2015.
If you missed out on all the news last week because of… well you simply checked out Tuesday for the long 4th of July weekend, we got you covered
If you enjoyed the w(rap) please comment below to let us know ;)

Silicon Beach Fest has sadly come to an end, however Elvina Beck hit the marina for this year’s SBF getting some insightful tidbits of information from SBF attendees. So sit back, experience and enjoy what SBF had to offer.

Until recently, three legacy providers (Sizmek, PointRoll and Google’s DoubleClick) have dominated the rich media market. But that’s changing with a new crop of rich media platforms disrupting the ecosystem with new mobile and non-standard rich media ad formats, one of which – Jetpack – is located right here in Santa Monica.

Back in 2012 when the Flame virus was wreaking havoc across the world, the need for army-trained hackers became a whole new frontier for IT software companies. The threat of hacking and loss of data has never been real than now. There are over a billion passwords stolen and stored in a single Russian databases. The worst thing that can happen to any company is waking up one morning and finding out all the data has either been stolen or tampered with. Russian hackers have recently been reported as having accessed President Obama’s email address in as military hackers believe that both Hillary Clinton and the President’s emails are still vulnerable to hacking.

The cloud services market continues to grow at an impressive rate. Companies all over the world are realizing how beneficial it is to move some operations to the cloud, creating a need for the services that cloud providers offer. Research from the Everest Group shows that the cloud services market is worth $40 billion, with growth expected annually at a rate of 27 percent.

Santa Monica-based Tapiture has grown in traffic by 300%, monetized from year one and raised $2.25 million in seed funding since its founding in 2012. If Pinterest is catnip for girls, Tapiture was founded to go after the men, but quickly evolved into a more sophisticated artistic social media community. The curated design and photography-driven entertainment site is where GIFs and memes intermingle with stunning photography, video and the ability to purchase in app.

Nearly three years after the showing of the prototype, Facebook-owned Oculus finally unveiled the much-awaited Oculus Rift virtual reality headset this week. While news sources and fans are eagerly awaiting more details about the long-enigmatic device, a news conference in San Francisco revealed some, but not all, specifications. Here’s what we know so far:

Uber isn’t some niche startup anymore. Due to impressive growth in the past few years, accompanied by headlines reveling in its successes and controversies, Uber has established itself as an innovative transportation service poised for further expansion in the future. In fact, one of Uber’s investors recently said the company could be worth more than $40 billion with an estimated annual growth of an astounding 800 percent.

It’s no secret – digital marketing is the big brand battleground for most companies. Especially for small or medium-sized businesses, most of your time, effort, and potential reward are all going to be web-based, and getting your digital marketing strategy right is often a sink-or-swim proposition.