Quantcast Vying for Spot in Web Metrics Pool

Web analytics startup Quantcast appears poised to make a serious run at challenging the Internet’s top two third party audience measurement firms Nielsen Online and comScore Media Metrix based on a series of recent moves. The company, which says it offers free audience traffic data on over 20 million Web sites at Quantcast.com, has recently signed on more than 20,000 sites to its “qualified publisher” program, including properties from Fox and CBS. That program enables Quantcast to generate detailed, more granular audience profiles of these sites, say officials. And on Tuesday, the company said it had landed $20 million in new financing. Quantcast, which joins a crowding Web analytics field, says its data will eventually prove superior for publishers and advertisers, in part since it is not based solely on panel projections. “Quantcast is changing the way the media industry measures and identifies audience segments through a collaborative, direct-measurement platform,” said co-founder and CEO Konrad Feldman.
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