Twitter CEO Says Service Generates 1 Bil Tweets Every Six Days

There are about 1 billion tweets every six days, but beyond that, Twitter doesn’t share data and third-parties that are trying to gauge usage aren’t getting it right, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said Thursday.

Costolo, speaking at the AllThingsD conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., was boasting about how powerful Twitter has become.

Just after, and separate from the conference and Costolo’s remarks, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal seemed to echo the point by choosing to use Twitter to announce: “I’m retiring.”

In his tweet, O’Neal, the former Los Angeles Laker who now plays for the Boston Celtics – at least until his retirement is official -- linked to a video at Tout.com.

“We did it. Nineteen years, baby,” O’Neal says in the video. “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.”

Tout is a new video-sharing service for user-generated content that is aimed at Twitter and Facebook users.

At the conference, Costolo also talked up Twitter’s improved search functionality that show photos and videos on the results page. In a few weeks, people will be able to upload and attach photos to their tweets from Twitter.com.

On the topic of Twitter metrics, Costolo said: “There isn’t a third party that we’ve seen yet that can correctly measure the Twitter audience. The reason we don’t share, is because it’s so syndicated and distributed. We’ll share that number when we have a better sense of what our network traffic is.”