Micro-blogging platform Twitter has revamped its apps and profile-page layout to give greater prominence to users' photographs, making the website more reminiscent of Facebook. The redesign of the social media site will now allow members to feature one image as a large banner at the top of their timelines, and will move members' photo streams higher up on the left hand side of their profile page.

The firm's chief executive Dick Costolo revealed the new look on an American breakfast TV-show, the Telegraph reports.

"Upload an all-new header photo on mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android or twitter.com, and the same image will appear whenever anyone views your profile on the web or these apps," Twitter mentioned on the site.

As well as redesigning the Twitter iPhone and Android apps along with its website, the firm's iPad app has also been rebuilt from scratch to make it "fast, beautiful and easy to use". It now allows more direct access to tweeted material such as videos and photographs, the paper said.

The move to add more 'visual interest' is in line with Twitter's plan to become more of a "destination" and to help build its fledgling advertising business, it added.