Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2012. This is news from that month, and all the audience figures (20 million monthly unique visitors, 2.7 million Twitter followers, 842,000 Facebook fans) and Cashmore’s age (26) are from that date. Google+ closed to consumers in 2019.
First came the purchase of TechCrunch for $40 million. Then came the purchase of The Huffington Post for $315 million. Now CNN has set its sights on the popular tech blog Mashable.com, according to The Guardian, with talks at an advanced stage and a deal that could close at $200 million.
Mashable was founded in 2005 by Pete Cashmore, a 19-year-old Scot who carved out a place for himself in the blogging world by covering tech news and social media. He later added business and entertainment. Mashable is estimated to reach 20 million unique visitors a month and more than 50 million page views. Its Twitter account has 2.7 million followers and its Facebook page already has 842,000 fans.
Mashable has 333,000 followers on Google+, and more than a million people have Pete Cashmore in their circles on the same network.
In other words, at 26 Pete Cashmore is about to join the club of people who got rich thanks to the internet, which shows his blog has been a thoroughly profitable business. With this purchase, CNN will make the largest internet investment in its history.
Featured image: Josh Hallett, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
