Five years after the very first tweet, Twitter celebrated its (almost) birthday by sharing some numbers about the microblogging service&'s still-impressive growth.

The big number is the one in the headline: Twitter says its users now send one billion tweets in the space of one week. In contrast, it took the company three years, two months, and one day after Twitter creator Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet (on March 21, 2006) to reach its first billion tweets. And it seems like the rate is accelerating &8212' the company previously said its users sent 25 billion tweets in all of 2010.

You can see the full list of stats at the Twitter blog post, but here are a few other highlights:

Beyond the numbers, Dorsey has been tweeting about his memories of the company&'s early days.

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Companies: Twitter

People: Jack Dorsey

Companies: Twitter

People: Jack Dorsey

Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

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