Social Media Saturday: Facebook Takes Off, Twitter Looks Shaky, and Two Social Networks Reveal Unsurprisingly Low Diversity
This week in social media, Facebook took a victory lap on Wall Street, while Twitter's earnings next week look to be disappointing. Also disappointing, but not surprising, were the diversity figures released this week by Twitter and Pinterest.
It's time for Social Media Saturday!
Will Zuckerberg Become the Richest Person on the Planet?
Facebook posted its second-quarter earnings report this week that exceeded most analysts' estimates by a hundred million dollars. The company experienced an increase of 61 percent, reaching $2.91 billion in revenue for the quarter and generating a profit of $791 million, mostly based on the strength of its online ads sales.
The company's stock has increased 183 percent in the last year, outperforming all other stocks on the Standard and Poor 500, according to Bloomberg, which, along with a rally caused by the great earnings report that added $1.6 billion to his fortune, rocketed Facebook co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's worth above Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Zuckerberg is now the 16th richest person as ranked by Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and he may not stop there. "He's just getting started," said David Kilpatrick, author of "The Facebook Effect," to Bloomberg. "He's going to become the richest person on the planet." Especially if Facebook can turn its social network into a social marketplace, which it appears to be working on with its rumored "Buy" button that would allow users to make purchases directly from Page posts without leaving Facebook.
Twitter: Not So Hot on Wall Street
Twitter has had a bad year already as a newly publically traded company, but it looks like things could get worst. According to Business Insider, some Wall Street analysts are predicating that Twitter's slow-growing user base -- which has already been the bane of its post-IPO existence -- may be growing even more slowly than most expected.
Twitter's earnings report is coming next week, but with competing analysts similarly predicting doom and the Wall Street Journal publishing articles headlined "Why you should dump your Twitter shares now," it's probably safe to say Twitter's headed for a bloodbath on Wall Street.
Diversity Figures: Twitter and Pinterest Disappoint, As Expected
This week two social media companies followed Facebook in reporting its diversity figures, and both unsurprisingly followed suit with the now familiar Silicon Valley chorus, "We're mostly white men, but we're trying to be more inclusive."
(Photo : Twitter)
According to Twitter's diversity breakdown, nearly 60 percent of Twitter employees were white, and 70 percent were male. Leadership positions tended to exacerbate the white/male figures, with nearly 80 percent of leadership being male and 72 percent being white. Again, the largest minority group was Asians, close to 30 percent overall, while other minorities came in at about nine percent total. Latinos only made up three percent of Twitter's staff.
(Photo : Twitter)
The day after Twitter released its report, Pinterest shared its diversity stats, which were similar to the Silicon Valley norm, though interestingly, emphasizing Asian employees. Of the total company, 60 percent were men, which becomes 81 percent when looking at leadership positions. Pinterest is composed of 50 percent white employees, 42 percent Asian, and seven percent all other minorities, including Latinos coming in at a similar two percent of total Pinterest staff.
(Photo : Pinterest)
Both companies similarly emphasized how diversity was a priority, talked about which minority-in-tech programs they work with or sponsor, and emphasized how they're just getting started -- the last of which is true. Thanks to Google setting the first example, though these diversity reports might reflect the disappointing reality that America's most prominent and promising growth industry is still essentially a white boy's club, it at least starts the broad conversation off with an honest, transparent, and public appraisal of the situation.
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