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.
The lack of diversity in Silicon Valley has been a recent topic of concern, as large tech companies Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn and, most recently, Facebook release not-so-stellar diversity statistics. One thing has become clear from the recent influx of diversity reports from these companies (each of which deserves credit for at least starting the conversation): White men rule Silicon Valley.
Google may have released unflattering diversity figures recently (in a move that at least got the conversation started about the lack of minorities in Silicon Valley), but the tech giant is at least trying to bring about change. One initiative, a continuing partnership with Latino startup incubator Manos Accelerator, has just announced its second round of startups for its program.
Google released information about the diversity of its workforce, and the news isn't very positive. Most of the giant company's workforce is made up of white men. There is a positive side to the story though, as Google is at least acknowledging the problem with full transparency, which the National Hispanic Media Coalition says is the first step towards an "honest conversation" about the lack of diversity in tech.
Apple has said it wants to add more ethnic diversity to the little cartoon characters, called emoji, available to iPhone and Mac computer users. The characters, which are like graphically-enhanced emoticons originated from Japan and, while the graphic icons often many things from Japanese culture, there are no emoji Latinos or Black people.
