• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 29, 2012

Twitter on Wednesday introduced a program to certify tools of third-party vendors looking to help brands better understand what users think.

The Certified Products Program will help brands find the correct Twitter tools, according to the company. Analytics is just one type in a series of tools that companies continue to build to support brands.

As the number of businesses keeping in touch with consumers via Twitter grows, so do their needs, said Doug Williams, manager for business development at Twitter.

The certification program supports three categories: analytics, data reseller and engagement. Partners include Attensity, Crimson Hexagon, Dataminr, DataSift, ExactTarget, Gnip, HootSuite, Mass Relevance, Radian6, SocialFlow, Sprinklr and Topsy.

Some view the certification as an unusual step for Twitter, considering a recent decision to stop displaying the names of third-party companies in tweets. The move hides the branding of apps that consumers use to tweet in the Twitter stream. Those reading the tweets can no longer identify whether the sender used Hootsuite or Seesmic to send the tweet, for example. 

The changes arrive as Version 1.1 of the Twitter API starts to roll out. Announced last week, the latest version of the API increases restrictions and regulation to third-party app developers. Among the most important to this move are changes to the Developer Rules of the Road, pointing to traditional Twitter client applications.