Facebook has confirmed that it has bought Foursquare competitor Gowalla on Monday, but in a surprise move doesn’t really want the site.

In a statement issued to Pocket-lint it seems that the social network was after the company’s staff rather than the company’s website: 

“We're excited to confirm that Gowalla co-founders Josh Williams and Scott Raymond, along with other members of the Gowalla team, are moving to Facebook in January to join our design and engineering teams. In talking with the Gowalla team, we realized that we share many of the same goals: building great products that reach millions of people, making a big impact quickly, and creating new ways for people to connect and share what’s going on in their lives. 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.” 

According to the founding duo, Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January.

“We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.”

That maybe because it is too hard to retrospectively integrate with Facebook, or just that Facebook wasn't interested, however we suspect to see plenty of Gowalla like features in Facebook in the coming months.

Are you a Gowalla user? What do you think of the move? Let us know in the comments below.