Shaq retires via Twitter - It's how we roll (in social media)

He can only be described as a legend and true great of the game, last night the oldest player in the NBA announced he was retiring at the age of 39. Now Shaq being Shaq, he didn't do it in some amazing press conference with the world's media hanging on every word. No, the first people to find out were his loyal 3.8 million followers on social media site Twitter in a simple 3 word tweet 'im retiring video' - and of course a link to said video.

Yes Shaq told the world in just three words, and posted a link to a 19 second video of himself announcing the news. It is brief, honest, amateur and got straight to the point:

It has since been posted on a number of video sites. One YouTube user, lightronv, made a great comment which is doing the rounds:

'Like most of his free throws, he'll be badly missed'

Already hitting over 200,000 views in YouTube, and being mentioned in over 100,000 tweets within the last 12 hours alone, this story is sure to be one of the very biggest Sport / Social Media pieces of the year.

After 19 years in the NBA and a resume to rival most players, including: 4 titles, 15 All-Star Game appearances, 3 Finals MVPs, the 2000 NBA MVP, a massive 28,596 career points, 13,099 career rebounds and the 2,732 career blocks, Shaq will be sorely missed!

I wouldn't worry though, he will easily make the transition from Basketball Star to Reality Superstar (if he hasn't already) and you will probably see him on your screens and read about him more than ever. He has already started looking for a new 'media friendly name' via Beta site tout.com and he wants your input.

You can tweet him your ideas on twitter using the #shaqname and #ShaqRetires hashtag, if you do send him something why not let us know your best names and ideas in the comments below. We would love to hear them.

With him being such a huge fan of Twitter, I can assure you, here at What's Trending, we will try our best to get him on the show with Shira pronto!

Stuart Flatt is a writer from Average Joes Blog and a weekly columnist for What's Trending.