VeriSign Purchases Weblogs.com

In the second major blogging-related acquisition in as many days, VeriSign on Friday said it purchased Weblogs.com, a service that alerts users when Web logs are updated.

The Web site was one of the original "ping servers" and was developed by Dave Winer, most known for his work in creating RSS and Web logging tools.

Winer said VeriSign is the perfect company to run Weblogs.com. "Their name servers, I hear, respond to 250,000 requests per second at peak loads. In comparison, weblogs.com's 1-2 million pings a day seems a drop in the bucket," he said in his Web log Friday.

"Further, it will require great resources to tackle the ping-spam issue, and there Verisign's expertise, not just what's visible today, but what's coming down the road, will make all the difference," Winer said.

VeriSign said that it will continue to run Weblogs.com as an openly available product, however the backend of the site would be migrated over to the company's own technologies. The company says this would allow the site to operate smoothly as RSS grows in popularity.

"VeriSign is uniquely positioned to provide the scalable, secure infrastructure that the blogosphere needs," said Mark McLaughlin, senior vice president of VeriSign's Naming and Directory Services. "Purchasing the ping server architecture of Weblogs.com enables VeriSign to continue supporting the vast numbers of Internet communications and improve the experience of millions of Internet users."