This blog post makes me smile  — a lot:

Startups are being bought for their design talent.  While I was traveling I heard news that  Facebook acquired Gowalla  and I had to smile. This is an obvious design talent acquisition…Gowalla has one of the most talented groups of designers around and while their service was successful, it was seen to have lost to Foursquare and was looking to reinvent itself. Now, it doesn't have to.

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Couple this with Facebook's acquisition of  Push Pop Press,Sofa, and  Daytum, and you see a clear trend here — they're pulling in as much design talent as they can.

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I've talked to friends at both Twitter and Zynga and the message is the same…they are 100% focused on design and investing heavily in it (and have been for a couple years now). I've even been asked if I know world-class design teams or agencies who want something new. Not because these companies want to work with them but because they want to buy them, because  they can't get design talent fast enough by recruiting individuals. Seriously.

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I remember not too many years ago that designers lamented of not having a "seat at the table". Well, folks, your time has come. Not only do you have a seat at the table…you've got a starring role. There is no better time to be a designer than right now.

Read on…