MessageCast, the service that drives .NET alerts for many-a-weblog (and other services), has announced they've been acquired.

So, if you subscribe to MSN/.NET alerts through for this or other weblogs, they're offline for a bit and will apparently be announcing more shortly.

In an email from the company:

As part of the transition, we need to have you review new licensing terms. Our service will be temporarily disabled in preparation for this.

A follow-up email will be sent shortly which will allow you to re-enable alerts.

Interesting - Hmmm, I wonder who acquired them? I can guess...

UPDATE: Ah - just as I guessed - MessageCast was acquired by Microsoft:

"We have an important announcement: The MessageCast LiveMessage service has been acquired by Microsoft Corporation."