Now ads come with the 'Tweets'

The advertising programme known as 'Promoted Tweets' is to be rolled out to two to 10 per cent of users via search on Twitter.com, company spokesperson Sean Garrett said.

Promoted Tweets are ordinary tweets that businesses and organisations want to highlight to a wider group of users, Mr Garrett said.

"Users will start to see tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages," he added.

Several companies will run ads, including Best Buy, Virgin America and Starbucks.

The internet start-up's short text messages or 'tweets' have become a global social phenomenon.