Twitter brings you closer to your favorite athletes, past and present. Even though an athlete has retired the admiration and connection with and from fans doesn't diminish with the passing of time. Stars want to stay close and fans want a way to keep up with their favorite athletes of years passed, and if we’re lucky, gain insight into moments from their career.

For this week’s #OnlyOnTwitter, we bring you three legends of sports.

Fifteen years ago, boxing champion Mike Tyson fought Evander Holyfield. What made headlines wasn’t the winner of the match, it was that Tyson bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear. Today, they’re both on Twitter.

@twitter.com/Pele/status/21…

— Pelé (@Pele) #AskPele

— Pelé (@Pele) from the world of sports here.

Posted by Andrew Fitzgerald, Manager, Editorial Programming (@magicandrew)

If we want there to be more women who pursue careers in engineering and computer science and feel welcome in these fields, we have to work on ways to increase the number of women studying engineering — it’s that simple. This is one reason we have an active Women in Engineering group (@womeng) at Twitter, made up of women and men, both engineers and non-engineers, who are passionate about encouraging young women to opt for and stay in computer science. Of course we have self-interest in this too: having more female engineers on staff leads to having an even better working environment at Twitter. But more importantly, we want to support engineering education and make it more accessible to young women.

All of which leads to our new partnership with @reshmasaujani), designed to introduce high school girls to software development skills. Through our investment of time, energy and money, we will be working with Girls Who Code to empower young women and provide them with the skills and resources necessary to pursue a career in engineering and technology.

Girls Who Code will begin this summer in New York City with an 8-week intensive program to teach basic principles of computer science and coding as well as sessions on design, research and entrepreneurship. Each participant will be matched with a female mentor from a tech company, and she and her mentor will work closely throughout the program and afterwards.

We cannot wait to see what the future holds for Girls Who Code, and we certainly hope to hire at least some of the participants in a few years. You can follow along too, via @GirlsWhoCode.

Posted by Sara Haider, Engineer (@pandemona)

During sporting events, Twitter mirrors the roar of the crowd. This is especially true during big events like the European Football Championship, which has ignited a global conversation around soccer. Below is a visualization of support for #France (in blue) and #England (in red) during their #Euro2012 match on June 11. On that day, people tweeted from 160 different countries about the game.

Visualization by @miguelrios

To bring fans closer to this conversation as it unfolds during the final stages of the Euros, Twitter will have a special page located at twitter.com/#Euro2012. You’ll find the best and most relevant Tweets from commentators, broadcasters, journalists, players, former players and lots more who share their thoughts, expertise and emotional reactions as they’re watching the games.

Similar to the experience we created for NASCAR races, you’ll also find this page when you search for #Euro2012 on on twitter.com or mobile.twitter.com.

Whether you're glued to the action on TV or you’re trying to find a new way to experience the matches, the #Euro2012 page will give you an experience customized to each match. We’ll be kicking off today with the Germany and Greece quarter-final, which you can watch on ESPN at 2:45pm ET / 11:45am PT.

-Omid Ashtari, Twitter Sports & Entertainment Team (@omid)

Do you ever unwrap a candy bar and secretly hope for a Willy Wonka style twitpic.com/9yzy84

— Katy Perry (@katyperry) #KP3D1 if you like this one! all the time. When you follow your interests on Twitter, you’re among the first to find out about special opportunities that bring you closer to the people and events you care about most.

Posted by Karen Wickre, Editorial Director (@kvox)

Not how we wanted today to go. At approximately 9:00am PDT, we discovered that Twitter was inaccessible for all web users, and mobile clients were not showing new Tweets. We immediately began to investigate the issue and found that there was a cascading bug in one of our infrastructure components. This wasn’t due to a hack or GIF avatars, as some have speculated today. A “cascading bug” is a bug with an effect that isn’t confined to a particular software element, but rather its effect “cascades” into other elements as well. One of the characteristics of such a bug is that it can have a significant impact on all users, worldwide, which was the case today. As soon as we discovered it, we took corrective actions, which included rolling back to a previous stable version of Twitter.

We began recovery at around 10:10am PDT, dropped again around 10:40am PDT, and then began full recovery at 11:08am PDT. We are currently conducting a comprehensive review to ensure that we can avoid this chain of events in the future.

For the past six months, we’ve enjoyed our highest marks for site reliability and stability ever: at least 99.96% and often 99.99%. In simpler terms, this means that in an average 24-hour period, twitter.com has been stable and available to everyone for roughly 23 hours, 59 minutes and 40-ish seconds. Not today though.

We know how critical Twitter has become for you — for many of us. Every day, we bring people closer to their heroes, causes, political movements, and much more. One user, Arghya Roychowdhury, put it this way:

OMG..twitter was down....closest thing to living without oxygen for most of us....

— arghya roychowdhury (@arghya_rc) June 21, 2012

It’s imperative that we remain available around the world, and today we stumbled. For that we offer our most sincere apologies and hope you’ll be able to breathe easier now.

- Mazen Rawashdeh, VP, Engineering (@mazenra)

When you visit a Twitter user’s profile, you may want to see his or her original Tweets rather than their conversations. Then again, you may enjoy seeing the back-and-forth exchanges they have with other Twitter users. Now you can have it both ways.

When you visit the profiles of verified accounts, such as @bubbawatson, @NASCAR or @Pepsi, by default you will see their timeline of Tweets without replies: that is, you won’t see Tweets that begin with an @username. If you’d like to see all Tweets including replies, you can easily select “All” above the Tweets timeline on these profile pages.

This simplified profile, which we’re rolling out to verified accounts over the coming weeks, makes it easier to understand what kind of content the user shares on Twitter, and what Tweets you’ll see if you follow them. (Remember that replies on Twitter begin with an @username and are only seen by people who follow both the Tweet author and the @username at the beginning of the Tweet.)

Now you can quickly find out what your favorite musicians, athletes and brands are saying and doing, even if they frequently reply to others. And you can also continue to discover great moments on Twitter like when @MollyRingwald and @SalmanRushdie discussed following one another on Twitter.

-Michael Sippey, Director, Product Team (@sippey)

Twitter lets you peek in on the conversations you might not otherwise be privy to. Athletes watching a top sporting event, stars celebrating their own at an awards show, or an entirely unexpected interaction between well-moneyed men.

This week we wanted to share with you a few of the real-time conversations that some well-known folks have had about major events in their worlds. Not just a delightfully unexpected interaction between a rapper and a businessman, but also basketball stars, country musicians and baseball players.

Just a few weeks ago was this great, brief little dialogue between rapper Drake and Texas energy man T. Boone Pickens. In years past, had these two ever even crossed paths, we would have been extremely lucky to read about it in a Tom Wolfe essay. More likely, we’d never hear about it all. Today, on Twitter, their conversation is not only enabled, but shared with millions in real time.

The first billion is a helluva lot harder RT @The 22nd no-hitter in Major League Baseball
Matt Cain pitched MLB’s 22nd no-hitter in San Francisco and his teammates and players around the league were full-throated in their support.

Congrats my friend and teammate Matt Cain. Perfection! Amazing. Had one of the best seats in the house. So honored!!!
— Jeremy Affeldt (@JeremyAffeldt)
Posted by Andrew Fitzgerald, Manager, Editorial Programming (@magicandrew)

Starting today, you can discover more interactive experiences inside any Tweet on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com. When you expand Tweets containing links to partner websites, you can now see content previews, view images, play videos and more.

You’ve probably expanded Tweets before to play videos from YouTube or see photos from Instagram. Now, a diverse and growing group of new partners like the The Wall Street Journal, TIME also deliver rich content inside Tweets containing a link to those websites.

It’s easier than ever to discover breaking news and bylines. When you expand a Tweet linking to a news article by The San Francisco Chronicle or Der Spiegel Online, you can see a preview with the headline, the introduction and sometimes the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer. You can continue to read the article, follow these accounts, and reply, favorite or retweet the Tweet.

You can also see exclusive photos from inside the TMZ.

You can even watch moments from your favorite television shows like Dailymotion.

This easy new way to discover content from the web begins rolling out to everyone on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com starting today, and it’s coming soon to Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android.

- Michael Sippey, Director, Product Team (@sippey)

Which hashtag are you: #ThunderUp or #LETSGOHEAT? The NBA Finals start tonight (9pm ET on ABC) between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat, and Twitter will be your courtside seat for all the action.

We’ve assembled an all-star roster of not one, not two, not three... but thirteen pro athletes, coaches, and super-fans to tweet their color commentary throughout the Finals:

@coachmiles - Nebraska men’s basketball head coach
@cliffavril - defensive end for the Detroit Lions
@TToliver80 - wide receiver for the Detroit Lions
@KButter5 - NBA draft prospect from the University of North Carolina
@JeffGordonweb - 4-Time NASCAR Cup Series Champion
@Niles_Paul84 - wide receiver for the Washington Redskins
@StayingInMyLane - cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers
@MAnderson_95 - defensive end for the Buffalo Bills
@arielmeredith - Sports Illustrated swimsuit model
@amoultrie - NBA draft prospect from Mississippi State University
@BrandonSpikes55 - linebacker for the New England Patriots
@adampally - comedian currently on ABC’s Happy Endings
@JasonTaylor - retired Miami Dolphins player

Each game will feature a different starting lineup, and we’re planning on adding a few more surprise folks, so June 7, 2012

We have spirit!!! June 9, 2012

Plenty of other NBA stars have been tweeting throughout the playoffs as avid fans:

OKC VS MIA FOR THE @

This game has u on the edge of ur seat don't it?

— Roy Hibbert (@Hoya2aPacer) June 10, 2012

And of course, don’t forget to share your own team spirit and color commentary with #Finals.

Posted by Omid Ashtari, Sports & Entertainment Team (@omid)

Trends help you discover the emerging topics people are talking about on Twitter. You can see these topics as a worldwide list, or select one of more than 150 locations. In order to show emerging topics that matter more to you, today we’re improving our algorithms to tailor Trends based on your location and who you follow on Twitter.

These Trends lists are tailored for you by default on twitter.com and mobile apps like Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. If you don’t wish to see tailored Trends, but instead want to see a more general list of Trends, just change your location on twitter.com. Of course, anytime you want a glimpse into the conversations that are happening on Twitter around the world, you can always select individual countries and cities to see Trends in those locations. Look out for tailored Trends as they roll out gradually starting today.

- Sara Mauskopf, Product Manager (@sm)

“The city where we have started and grown will remain our future home.” That’s what we said about 14 months ago when we announced that we were maintaining our roots in San Francisco.

Twitter was born in the City by the Bay, and we’re grateful to Mayor Ed Lee, the Board of Supervisors (especially Supervisors Jane Kim and David Chiu), the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and the Shorenstein Company for helping us expand locally.

Now our new space is ready, and we’re on the move to Market Square. We’re especially pleased to benefit from the considerable effort Shorenstein has taken to revitalize not only a beautiful landmark property, but a corner of the City that had fallen on hard times.

Among other things, we’re looking forward to meeting our new neighbors. We aim to be a friend and good citizen to the many wonderful social service, arts and charitable organizations based here, and to do our part in renewing an historic — and newly promising — area.

If you’d like to know more about our new neighborhood, an initiative called community organizations that give the Mid-Market District a lot of its heart.

And now, back to nesting.

— Gabriel Stricker (@gabrielstricker), VP Communications

This weekend, Twitter will take you onto the track, into the pit, and among the crowd at the Pocono 400 with #NASCAR KyleBusch , now you know. You can visit June 7, 2012