Twitter has reportedly been in talks to buy Flipboard for more than $1B

Twitter has been in talks since the beginning of this year to buy article-sharing app Flipboard, according to a new report today.

Twitter could pay more than $1 billion in stock to make the acquisition, Re/code’s Kara Swisher is reporting, citing unnamed sources.

Flipboard and Twitter declined to comment.

Deeper integration of the Twitter and Flipboard apps as a result of an acquisition could help Flipboard take advantage of advertisements from some major brands. Flipboard, meanwhile, could become larger by expanding to Twitter’s entire user base.

Flipboard launched in 2010 and is based in Palo Alto, Calif. The company has raised more than $160 million in funding, with backing from the likes of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, and Rizvi Traverse Management.

In January, Flipboard advanced its monetization strategy by launching Promoted Items, enabling brands to push their own content into Flipboard magazines.

In February, when Flipboard launched a full web app, Mike McCue, the company’s chief executive, told VentureBeat that Flipboard had 50 million monthly active readers. A Flipboard spokeswoman told VentureBeat this week that as of this month the company has 65 million monthly active users.

In March the company said users had created 15 million public magazines to share content.

The deal could be critical for Twitter when it comes to making money through partnerships with publishers, now that Facebook is working with publishers in its new Instant Articles program to quickly deliver articles from Facebook’s News Feed.