Twitter CEO: Get ready to see more ads

If you're one of those Twitter users who can't stand sponsored tweets, well, too bad: The microblogging site is about to roll out a lot more of the advertising messages.

Chief Executive Dick Costolo said that Twitter is going to expand the program "from companies you follow to those you don't." In other words, the 140-character ads are losing the opt-in status that, up to now, have let users choose which brands are able to send them messages. "We've been super-cautious about rolling out more promoted tweets because we didn't want it to impact the user experience," Costolo said during an hourlong breakfast chat with a few dozen members of the media. But based on what Costolo termed enthusiastic response rates to promoted tweets, the company has decided to let other advertisers ping users -- though he emphasized that the new incoming messages will be selected based on their similarity to brands users have already chosen to follow. He also said promoted tweets will migrate beyond the message stream on the company's Twitter homepage to "everywhere tweets go," including third-party websites that use the company's service. At the same time, he said Twitter will be careful not to inundate users with unwanted content: "We'll see, and we'll experiment."