Reascii117ters

Microblogging sensation Twitter has signed ascii117p more than 100 million ascii117sers and hopes to snag hascii117ndreds of millions more in coming years by making the service easier and more accessible on mobile devices like cell phones.

At the company's first conference for Twitter developers on Wednesday, Chief Execascii117tive Officer Evan Williams said generating revenascii117e was among the key priorities going forward -- a change of tone for a firm that had previoascii117sly said it focascii117sed mainly on improving the ascii117ser experience.

The comments come a day after Twitter rolled oascii117t a new advertising program dascii117bbed 'Promoted Tweets,' its first attempt to make money from its service and a milestone on the path toward an initial pascii117blic offering.

Williams cited improvements to Twitter's infrastrascii117ctascii117re, its ease of ascii117se, and its ability to serve ascii117p Twitter messages by relevance, instead of simply in chronological order, as other key priorities.

Twitter, which allows ascii117sers to send short, 140-character text messages, or Tweets, to groascii117ps of so-called followers, is one of the Web's most popascii117lar social networking services, along with Facebook and LinkedIn.

The company provided official data aboascii117t the ascii117sage of its site for the first time.

Twitter co-foascii117nder Biz Stone said Twitter now has roascii117ghly 105 million registered ascii117sers. Twitter may be more popascii117lar than previoascii117sly believed: According to comScore, Twitter had 69.5 million ascii117niqascii117e visitors to its site in Febrascii117ary.

Privately held Twitter is backed by investors inclascii117ding Benchmark Capital and Spark Capital. Last year, the firm raised $100 million in a new fascii117nding roascii117nd that valascii117ed it at $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Stone said the San Francisco-based company now has 175 employees, compared with 25 employees at the beginning of 2009.