with rumours rife that google could be looking to acquire twitter, grumbles can be heard wide and far, as demonstrated by the number of comments left on this recent techcrunch post. the reason? all of the cool apps appear to be getting bought up by big corporates - last.fm, flickr, delicious etc.

of course this is the dream for many of the founders – big dollar bills and a life of comfort with the potential of your app being rolled out to the mass market for whom you might not have been able to reach. however, I often wonder how that makes those founders feel. surely there has to be something a little bit sad about letting control of your baby, the project over which you’ve poured so many hours of work into and sleepless nights?

what about those who are kept on as part of the acquisition? to deal with the  shift in culture when you’re acquired by a huge company such as google or facebook can’t be easy. where changing things on the fly and staying nimble might be easy to do when you’re a tiny startup – this isn’t as easy when you have a big boat to turn.

i’m definitely one of the grumblers, that’s for sure. i love twitter as it is. i know that the ev and the good guys there need to make money from the service but i’d be sad to see it end it’s startup journey. heck, i joined back in 2006 when you could almost hear the tumbleweed. maybe that’s just me though… after all, you’re talking to the girl that cringes every time she hears it mentioned on radio one, feeling it seep away from what was cool with the tech crowd to part of the mainstream web activity of many teenieboppers.

my social media cap tells me it’s a good thing – it’s increased reach and mass appeal can only be good for brands, but the early adopter in me sheds a little tear. no matter what happens to twitter, if it enables me to stay connected to as many people as i currently am and the failwhale (god bless his soul) only makes the occassional appearance, i’ll continue to love it. i can’t help it, it’s almost part of me. i wish ev and the team the best for whatever decisions are having to be made at the moment.