WebProNews

There's nothing extraordinary about it, but 20,000 is a good, round number.  And for Quantcast, it amounts to an important milestone, because that's how many publishers the open Internet ratings service has attracted.

Joe Mandese writes, "While not exactly a critical mass of the Web universe, the achievement is significant because it signals that Quantcast is reaching a level of acceptance among mid-sized and smaller publishers who represent the 'long tail' of the Internet marketplace, and who are generally overlooked by the big ratings services."

As Hitwise's Robin Goad recently noted, that long tail gets bigger all the time.  Also, software maker NetSuite has specifically targeted companies that sail under Oracle's radar, and it was just able to increase its IPO price range by a hefty 19 percent.  So Quantcast really does appear to be onto something.

In related news, Quantcast just gained a new chief marketing officer.  If Adam Gerber does his job well, word of the 20,000-publisher milestone will spread, and his company will become all the more successful in the near future.