The past NBA Season was one for the books. Not only did we recently witness an epic rematch of the 2006 NBA Finals between the superstar-laden Miami Heat and the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks, but we also bid farewell to one of the most dominant forces that ever played the game – Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq, who has been called a myriad of names like “Superman”, “Diesel”, “The Big Aristotle”, “The Big Cactus” and lastly “The Big Shamrock” has decided to retire after playing 19 stellar NBA seasons, leaving a big imprint in the game of basketball with an impressive resume of 4 NBA Championships (3 with the Los Angeles Lakers and 1 with the Miami Heat), 1 MVP, 8 All-NBA First Team selections and 15 All-Star appearances. His retirement did not really come as a surprise after seeing the evident decline in his game for the past several seasons due to several injuries plaguing him. What was surprising, or historical, depending on how you look at it, is the way he did it. Shaq announced his retirement via the popular social networking site Twitter. And as always, he did it with style.
Shaq tweeted,“Im retiring.” Then he followed that entry with a 15-second video linked with the microblogging site, where O’Neal said “We did it. 19 years baby. I want to thank you very much. That’s why I’m telling you first. I’m about to retire. Love you. Talk to you soon.” Short but sweet.
This is the first time that an NBA player, or a professional athlete for that matter, has chosen to announce his retirement first through a social networking/ microblogging site. While the traditional way is to just set-up a press conference, Shaq chose to break out from that mold by announcing the news first via his Twitter account, to the surprise of a lot of his followers (including the author of this article). It is interesting to note that Shaq is one of the major celebrities that hopped into the service when it was introduced to mainstream consciousness back in 2008, and is one of the celebrities that is actually engaged in it. After Shaq’s tweet, the announcement went viral, with several of his followers retweeting or reposting his retirement message. And this information was not limited to Twitter. It eventually reached other social networking sites, most notably, Facebook. By the time it reached the evening news and the newspapers the next day, it’s not really “news” anymore.
Shaq’s decision to announce his retirement via Twitter is a testament to how much social networking has grown over the years, to the point that major announcements and monumental events are relayed to the public with the use of such services. More importantly, it shows how the flow of information is streamlined and fast-tracked with the use of these sites. Gone are the days where you have to rely on tri-media (TV, radio, print) for the latest news and information. If you want fast communication or immediate information dissemination, the use of social media via the emergence of social networking sites is the way to go.
In the end, I believe that it is but fitting for Shaq to retire on such a “personal” note, and of course, with Shaq-ness.
Will always be a fan.
Entry # 1
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