Late Sunday night after the third (but prettiest) day of SXSWi, after I escaped the madness of downtown Austin, I was going through my regular daily news. I checked LinkedIn Today (an awesome news source if you’re on LinkedIn a lot) and found an article by Reuters saying that CNN was going to buy Mashable for a reported 200 million bucks! Mashable is my absolute favorite news source for any and all things social media. I follow Pete Cashmore (the founder) and all of the Mashable Pages on Facebook religiously. They have made Facebook my go to place for Mashable news in fact because I follow it so closely so it is always at the top of my news feed and because I get to stay on Facebook while I get my news. They are always giving me the newest and some of the coolest updates involving social media. That said, I was not particularly excited about this potential acquisition. I like it just the way it is and I’m sure you’ve all heard about the mass amount of people leaving TechCrunch since AOL bought it and took over in September 2010. I would hate for something like this to happen to Mashable. After all, their writers are what make it so great. They write hard hitting social media news and they all have a short and sweet style that keeps me coming back for more.
The Reuters blogger that reported this story, Felix Salmon, said in the Sunday article that the announcement would likely be Tuesday during SXSWi. I explored around SXSW, asked a few people, but most (even someone who works with CNN) had no idea because they were in SXSW world. I decided to go to the Internet instead and do some research. The New York Times reported that it would probably not happen this week… but it was in discussion for sure. Neither Mashable or CNN have commented on the rumors. I also looked to the Mashable Facebook Pages and Pete Cashmore’s Facebook Page and found nothing except less activity from Pete. The first thought that came to mind when I saw less activity was that Pete was tied up working out this acquisition but then I realized that he’s probably stuck in SXSW world as well. I then read that on Monday, Pete had sent out an email to all Mashable employees regarding the rumors. He said that “the rumor going around Twitter that Mashable will be acquired this week” was not true. Well, that’s great, but what about after this week, Pete? I’m hoping that there is no truth to this rumor and that Felix got it wrong but… if there is… I might have to turn the Posse Social Media Blog into the next Mashable.