Another day, another weird Twitter story. Tonight the news broke that NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal was being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Huge news, but what’s humorous is that apparently Shaq found out he was traded on Twitter.
Look at Shaq’s last few tweets. Several minutes ago he tweeted out “I didn’t hear dat yet” in response to this tweet, “is it true u a CLEVELAND CAVALIER.” A few minutes later someone sent Shaq the following tweet, “U CLEVELAND BOUND…shaq found out he was traded thru twitter! lmao….hahahaaaaaa” Shaq’s response? “I kno right.”
He went silent after that. Hopefully his agent called him to tell him the news. Then I fully expect a rush of good rush of tweets name-dropping LeBron James. The trade was rumored to be going down during the regular season, so I’m happy for the big guy that it got done. As well as for my hometown Cleveland Cavs.
Shaq is one of the most popular Twitter users with nearly 1.4 million followers.
This looks to be yet another example of Twitter being used to break news. Albeit much, much less substantial than what is going on in Iran.
[thanks Jon]
Something weird is going on here. How could he not know he was traded???
Team sources leak info to their press contacts, as soon as it looks to be (but before it’s officially) a done deal
Looks like the story broke on twitter from the Cavs beat reporter:
twitter.com/PDcavsinsider
He would know something was going down with his agent, plus he would need to approve the deal or whine if he didn’t want to go. Its been talked about for a while so he probably knew a trade was likely just not exactly when it would happen.
Also, how can Shaq not have cable?
That’s hilarious if accurate. And Lebron and Shaq together – if the big man stays clear of injuries, could be pretty devastating.
good thing techcrunch wasn’t around when email or instant messenger were created.
Or what?
too slow
may be he wanted to say otherwise every 1 out of 2 TC story would be about how great IM is.
Oh Lord… You Hateboys really need to find a hobby. Twitter is becoming the go-to source for news on anything. How good a reputable Tech blog of any kind not report it? Idiots…
You’re a bunch of sheep.
When did Techcrunch become Valleywag. How does one make a story out of this?
Shaq has always had a playful sense of humor.
His tone, especially when trying to read beneath the surface of a 21 character Tweet in response from a dude named DJ J*TREY should probably not be taken as gospel.
You Tech-Nerds @ TechCrunch and their blind offspring have really compromised whatever ’stock’ you had left once you started evangelizing your own Twitter following and these ‘Twitter is God’ stories.
If you check out ESPN, they are starting to use Twitter quotes more and more in their articles. I saw Australia’s own Andrew Bogut quoted in an article yesterday about the Bucks trade!
Not to jump on the band wagon of haters that dislike the copious coverage of seemingly mundane and similar Twitter stories… but I do wish I could read something mind blowing about Tech or a new startup with an amazing idea which is going to crush it.
I’m not against coverage of Twitter but when everyone talks about things being “techcrunch news worthy” and companies / ideas are being turned down while a lot of the same things are being covered on Twitter. Create http://www.twittercrunch.com and post to your hearts content about twitter there. I want the pre-twitter TechCrunch back.
My $.02 rant.
In defense of the general vapidness, if you’re lucky enough to spend all of your day crawling the App store, browsing Twitter, and praying in the direction of Cupertino, you write about what you know.
I think if everyone who said this offered examples of those who are doing something mind blowing in tech…that would be, ya know…helpful?
When Facebook, digg, twitter even myspace came out they all brought innovation and something new and unique to the table.
Twitter for example with the whole Iranian conflict demonstrated a good and easy way to communicate a message globally. Great I’m glad TechCrunch and every other news org has covered that. Moving forward with this knowledge we understand that Twitter is used to break news to people (it’s real time). So why do we need another article about it.
I dare make the assumption that if the TechCrunch writers spent a little more time diving into the hidden gems out on the internet instead of writing about the same things with slightly different twists on them it’d be brought to an even greater level.
TechCrunch has a tips email just like every other blog. These hidden gems you speak of must be really hidden.
except for brand new Techcrunch readers like moi…I’ve fallen in love with the site and this is among the first Twitter articles I’ve read…so I ‘preciate it
General Managers are sometimes slow to notify agents/players that they have been traded. It happens all the time, for example on trade deadlines and draft days, that a player sees on TV or hears from someone else that they’ve been traded before the GM has a chance to call.
It’s the flipside of his involvement with Twitter though – that someone, a fan, laughed in his face that Shaq hadn’t heard yet. Would probs feel quite different to finding out via TV (which would be bad enough, IMHO)?
How many ppl in traditional media are slapping palm to forhead everytime a story gets broke on twitter? By the time stuff like this hits mainstream news channels (TC not included) the ‘news’ is several days old.
actually it was broken by a few reporters I believe (ESPN I think had one of the stories), but it was apparently broken TO SHAQ on Twitter.
I dunno, if I was making that kinda money I’d play stupid too. Let everyone else have fun with the rumors and let someone else make the official announcement.
Just shake hands and collect my paycheck. His agent probably called to say “stop tweeting!”
certainly possible.
I had no idea you were a fellow northern Ohioan. I thought I was the only one working in the Valley who’d be excited about this trade…
ha ha yup. eastern suburb of cleveland.
I was surprised to hear that as well – don’t see a lot of Clevelanders out here! I’m from Brecksville (just south of the city off I77)
LeBron+Shaq might be the ticket … god knows we needed a *real* center.
Go Cavs!
What makes me happy is that Ben Wallace and Sasha are no longer our liabilities. I live by North Royalton btw, so we’re probably neighbors.
Don’t worry, he’ll rebound from this whole thing.
ohiseewhatyoudidthar. rebound! nice.
Somebody get these people a dictionary.
As a guy who has a huge bet that LeBron won’t win a ring in the next 5 years, this could be a great thing to happen for my bet. Shaq is the Rocky Balboa of the NBA. Hang it up dude!
17.8ppg in 2008-2009 is hardly Rocky Balboa… Most NBA players – especially centers – would be pretty happy making those sort of points during their best year (Dwight Howard averaged 20ppg this season, for example).
I hope you lose your bet.
it is amazing the lengths one will go to in order to continue appearing “street” while… twittering.
fo sho.
i think we were first on this story http://stocklem...ed-through.html
This reminds me of Chris Webber when he was traded from Washington to the Sacramento Kings. He said he went into a liquor store to buy something and the cashier mentioned the trade. He left the store irritated thinking the guy didn’t know what he was talking about, and later found out it was true.
After that, he was just irritated that he was going to Sacramento.
Isn’t it more likely that he knew about it but wasn’t supposed to talk about it until he heard from his agent it was official!? And that’s why he respondend in that way, and the second response (’i kno right’, like ‘yeah you got me… :s’) would be sarcastic, or whatever you wanna call it.
hahaha i never post anything but this is getting so fucking retarded that I must say something…..you believe in this people???? come onnnnn!!! wake up, dont live in a f… dreamland…..shaq makes around $30MM per year, you think he doesnt know what is going on with his last big deal?? wow….the media is destroying this world….so sad….
Yes, I don’t think you can take everything on Twitter at face value. TC, try not to be gullible. You rushed this story to press without considering that Shaq might have been being sarcastic.
Especially regarding Twitter, take a second in your excitement about “breaking” a story to consider whether what you are reading into a few comments reflects the actual situation unfolding. A quick fact-check by DMing or Tweeting Shaq could have verified your understanding or put this story in its proper context.
I want to be informed that I have new employment over on Twitter -
@joedawson NASA would like for you to become an astronaut and travel into Space
28 minutes ago from nasaberry
@NASA Too infinity, and beyond..
10 minutes ago from web in reply to NASA
No difference than him finding out from a text message from a friend. People are just making a big deal out of this because it’s twitter.
Cleveland is going to be awesome with Shaq, thatll be the easiest team to market in history lol
http://www.yovi...m/blogs/timlara
Doesn’t Shaq have 2.7 million followers? Not that big of a deal, but I thought TechCrunch would’ve nailed that. After all, it is a pretty quick search.
Too funny. Just goes to show you the power of Twitter and how fast news can spread. I wonder if Shaq’s agent is on Twitter. Perhaps he should have kept Shaq up to date on what’s really going on.
As Luke said, it’s much more likely that Shaq damn well knew, he was just playing coy.
But I guess that doesn’t fit the narrative that Twitter can do everything from overthrow the Mullahs to cure cancer.
Wow, Cleveland is going to draw a sick audience.
A sick audience? Does Cleveland not have doctors or hospitals?
Give it a break, he clearly was just playing dumb. Of course he knew and was probably very involved in the whole negotiation process, but he wasn’t standing by while his publicist hit send on the fax machine, so he would wait til he heard from someone in his organization that the news was on the wire before he commented. For all he knew, it hadn’t been announced, and he was being baited to confirm a rumor.
You people that believe that Shaq found out via Twitter are a bunch of Twards. Shaq has to play coy. You know how many times these guys get baited into revealing behind the scenes deals by reporters? He can’t let on anything before deals are officially announced, even if they are leaked by insiders.
Pulease, go back to your regularly scheduled delusion.
Twitter is the best thing since Google.
Twitter rocks.