Twitter won't have ads in 2009, says Biz Stone

TWITTER has no plans to put advertisements on the popular microblogging site this year, cofounder Biz Stone says.

Mr Stone said Twitter was "pretty good right now" with regards to funding. He said the company's immediate focus was on improving and introducing new features, including an upgraded search function and paid-for commercial accounts.

"Any kind of approach toward advertising is going to be a while. We're not thinking about that just yet," Mr Stone said at the 140: Twitter Conference in Los Angeles.

Privately held Twitter has received plenty of venture funding, but Mr Stone declined to disclose the amounts or valuation.

TechCrunch recently reported that a new round of funding would value Twitter at $US1 billion ($1.14 billion).

Still in its infancy, the fledgling company has become a cultural phenomenon – but Twitter and other social networking websites have yet to show investors how they will start earning a profit.

To that end, Mr Stone said Twitter would aim to sell premium features to commercial users this year.

"We wanted to show people that we're here to stay and here we are making money," Mr Stone said.

Those features could include "light analytics" tools that allow commercial users to gather data on their followers, he said.