The popular newsreader Pulse brings in 20 million users a day so it stands to reason that somebody would want to acquire such an audience. The only question that remained is who would come out on top in acquisition negotiations. We now may have our answer.

All Things D reports that LinkedIn will purchase Alphonso Labs, the team behind the Pulse newsreader, for anywhere between $50 to $100 million. The business-minded social network reportedly beat out Microsoft and Yahoo, both of which were also interested in buying it.

None of this is confirmed as LinkedIn and Alphonso Labs are both remaining silent. We should be hearing something later this week, however, if the deal went ahead smoothly.

Unlike some acquisitions, I can’t see LinkedIn killing the Pulse newsreader. Instead, it’s more likely that LinkedIn will use the Pulse team’s design skills to redesign its own personalized news feed.

We’ll continue to watch this story and bring you the official details of the deal when more is known. Until then, just imagine a LinkedIn newsfeed that looks less like this:

and more like this: