Updated: The deal has been announced officially. Also, Ken Fisher, the founder of ArsTechnica, explains the rationale of the deal in a rather eloquent post here: “We’re going to get broader, but also more in-depth, in areas of IT and science. We are going to be opening offices in San Francisco and Chicago in a matter of weeks, and we are rearranging our editorial team slightly..”

Original post: CondeNast, the parent of Wired and Portfolio, has made an interesting acquisition, a rumor we had been following for a month: it has bought the veteran tech news site ArsTechnica, for around $25 million. The news was first reported by TechCrunch, and we have corroborated from sources as well. The site will be part of Wired Digital. The price is around the same as Wired magazine paid for buying Wired.com back from Lycos-Daum in 2006. Since then, the digital arm of Wired and parent Conde has been making steady stream of small acquisitions, including social news site Reddit, NutritionData, travel blog producer SFO Media, and more to come.

ArsTechnica, based in Boston, was founded in 1998 by Ken Fisher, and the rather esoteric name is a Latin phrase, meaning the “Art of Technology”. It has been known for its serious yet edgy coverage of tech news and issues. Comscore (NSDQ: SCOR) says the total monthly pageviews is around 4 million, and judging from the content itself, small overlap with Wired.com audience. More after the jump...

This deal is among the first done by the new media bank Mesa Global (which represented ArsTechnica), and from the CondeNast side, continues the ascent of Kourosh Karimkhany, who is officially the GM of Wired Digital, but has become the lead corp dev person on the digital side of Conde Nast.

Kara recently did a video with ArsTechnica founder Ken Fisher on the philosophy and business of the site...his company was already in the process of being sold when Kara did this video, so you might be able to read in between the lines:

• CondéNet Buys Travel Blog Publisher SFO Media; Chubb Says More Acquisitions Ahead
• Wired News Site Sold Back To Conde Nast For $25 Million; Lycos Still Owns HotBot/Hotwired