Turns out the Web rumors were true for once. In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter's San Francisco office, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told me that the company had hired ex-Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman to be the company's new creative director.

Bowman will replace Stone, who was acting as Twitter's creative director. "The Twitter Web page looks pretty simple," says Stone. "But from our perspective the design needs a lot of work."

This is a great hire for Twitter, and more proof that Twitter has replaced Facebook as the tech industry's hottest startup. I am sure Bowman could have joined Facebook if he wanted. But the talented designer, who used to work at Wired News, clearly sees a bigger opportunity at Twitter, not only from a design perspective but perhaps from a monetary one as well.

Bowman will be a much-needed presence as Twitter expands and tries to handle the enormous design challenge of helping Twitter users to manage the increasingly large amount of information flowing through the Twittersphere.

Bowman caused a bit of a stir when he