Well, here is it. Facebook is on the roll, making plays in the acquisition game. Note this report from Reuters:

Facebook grabs Gowalla team, but not technology

“While Facebook isn’t acquiring the Gowalla service or technology, we’re sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time,” the company said.

The article also noted that the founders, and an undisclosed number of employees will be carried over to Facebook. Now, if it has been all or nearly all, they would have played that angle up. However, I believe they are just taking a few lucky and key souls along for the next ride and setting the rest adrift in the world of unemployment.

This is not just a guess, this is a common scenario in these sort of games of mergers and acquisitions. I’ve seen this happen with start-ups I’ve helped propel forward. In most of those cases, I was duly compensated, and in a few cases had the chance to enjoy the ride-along, if only for a little while.

Good luck to those that will undoubtedly get their Gowalla pink-slips, courtesy of Mr. Zuckerburg and Facebook.

For reasons far beyond this, I’ve already cut my FB usage down to a trickle, mainly using it for marketing my own ideas and soon to be publicly available products.