Twitter users can now include photos in their text messages to share them with others, thanks to the MMS feature newly introduced by the micro-blogging site.

The social networking site has deployed one of the BlueVia APIs to provide users with a new way to update their profiles. Users can send pictures from any MMS-enabled handset to their profiles and the pictures will be exhibited in instantaneously.

Explaining the procedure to share a photo, Twitter said, "It's simple: just enter the text of your tweet as you normally would, attach a photo to the message and send to Twitter."

Twitter has announced that a number of carriers around the globe have signed up for the service. In the UK, the service is available to customers of O2, Orange and Vodafone.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Cellular South in the US; Vodafone in Italy; TIM in Brazil and Rogers Communications in Canada have signed up to offer the new service.

Twitter, which allows users to send and receive messages in up to 140 characters, has reserved 20 characters for the photo. It means users are now left with 120 characters to tweet.