Reuters blogger Felix Salmon reported that CNN is in talks with Pete Cashmore, the founder of Mashable, to buy the social media website for a staggering $200 million. This news has also been confirmed by Brian Stelter of the New York Times who reported that the two companies are in "advanced talks." While both Mashable and CNN have remained mum on the story, the fact that Mashable's Executive Editor, Adam Ostrow, "liked" Felix Salmon's story about the $200 million CNN acquisition, further added fuel to the fire.

A Mashable spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on this surprising development, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson was heard commented, “We do not engage in speculation about our business and we aren't commenting on these reports."

Some industry experts are confused about CNN’s move to buy Mashable. Granted that Mashable enjoys a monthly page of view of 332-34 million; however, that isn’t much when compared to CNN’s 1.2 billion page views per month.

Many see this acquisition as CNN’s desire to tap into the younger more tech-savvy population who tend to ignore traditional media sources like CNN. With this acquisition, it is also clear that CNN, which is owned by Time Warner (News - Alert) Inc., wants to be a major player in the Web-based social media age. This desire was also reflected in their decision to acquire Zite last August, which is a news application for the iPad that renders news in magazine-like format.

Mashable has been able to carve a niche it for self by focusing primary on social media and Internet related news including Facebook and Twitter (News - Alert). If the deal goes through, then the acquisition would be CNN's biggest to date and it also reiterates the influence of the social media websites like Mashable in the modern news context.