Twitter posted first-quarter revenue that fell short of estimates and cut its sales forecast as the company struggles to attract more users and advertisers. Interestingly, the results leaked out early on the internet long before markets close.

Twitter expects sales to be $470 million to $485 million in the second quarter, and also the company cut full-year revenue guidance to $2.17 billion to $2.27 billion, from the previous range of $2.3 billion to $2.35 billion.

The number of monthly active members rose 18 percent to 302 million in the latest quarter compared with 20 percent in the prior period.

Twitter's revenue rose 74 percent to $436 million from $250 million a year earlier. But still, the company's growth was slower than expected.

"Revenue growth fell slightly short of our expectations due to lower-than-expected contribution from some of our newer direct response products," Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo said in the statement.

Separately, Twitter is teaming up with Google to sell more ads. Under a new agreement, marketers using Google’s DoubleClick advertising service can buy Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, the search giant said in a blog entry Tuesday. Twitter charges clients to highlight such postings into users’ feeds across the service.