• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 30, 2013

Advertising on Twitter is now open to all U.S. businesses and individuals, rather than being available on an invitation-only basis. Kevin Weil, senior director of product for revenue at the company announced the step today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York.

Anyone can now use Twitter’s self-serve tool for buying  ads. Besides Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, companies can use Twitter’s business analytics service to track the effectiveness of campaigns. The self-serve platform was introduced last year but only for a limited group of marketers.

Opening up advertising widely on Twitter will likely help the company accelerate revenue growth on its path toward an expected initial public offering. It also means heightened competition for the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and other players in the social media space.