The Wall Street Journal has announced that Yahoo’s board of directors has approved the company’s rumored acquisition of blogging website, Tumblr, for a reported $1.1 billion.

UPDATE: Yahoo! has formally announced the news and “promises not to screw it up.”

“Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going,” said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer via a post on Tumblr. “We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.”

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal tweeted that Yahoo’s board of directors has finally approved the acquisition of Tumblr for a reported $1.1 billion in cash. If the terms are agreed upon by Tumblr and its investors, Yahoo would be making its largest purchase since its acquisition of Overture Services Inc. in 2003 for $1.63 billion.

 
Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo on July 16, of last year. Mayer has certainly been focusing on making Yahoo relevant again. Mayer was a long-time executive at Google, and was ranked 14 on the list of America’s most powerful businesswomen of 2012 by Fortune magazine.

Along with attempting to increase Yahoo’s mobile phone market, she’s also focused on areas which she felt needed help to give Yahoo the ability to be hip once again with a younger demographic which they hope to gain with the purchase of Tumblr.

Mayer recently acquired food and entertainment recommendation app Jybe, as well as the news summary app Summly for a reported $30 million. But this is peanuts compared to the $1.1 billion in cash that they would be paying for the monster that Tumblr has become in recent years.

For readers who aren’t as familiar with Tumblr, it’s a microblogging platform and social networking website which has grown in recent years. It now hosts a reported 108 million blogs, and nearly 78 million posts are created on the site each day. The website has grown rapidly since it was launched in 2007.

Reports of the approval surfaced after days of rumors and speculation, with AllThingsD being the first to report that Yahoo’s board had planned on meeting Sunday in an attempt to reach a final decision on the acquisition.

Yahoo and Tumblr have yet to respond officially, and Tumblr would still have to accept the offer if it turns out to be true. How will this affect Tumblr users? Probably not all that much at first, but the website may start to see more Yahoo integration as the company attempts to increase their exposure with the younger demographic which inhabits Tumblr.

It’s been about a year since another billion dollar purchase was made back when Facebook purchased Instagram, and it has been able to remain essentially the same since the social media site took over. We hope the same can be said about Tumblr if Yahoo does indeed acquire the popular blogging website. Yahoo is reportedly holding a press conference in New York on Monday, where they are expected to announce the acquisition.

What do you think about Yahoo potentially purchasing Tumblr?

We know many of our readers also have a presence on Tumblr, so let us know what you think about the potential $1.1 billion dollar purchase.