Twitter sentiment analysis firm Crimson Hexagon looked at 200,000 tweets that mentioned the deal -- and found that just 12% of them registered any sort of approval. Some 18% of users were simply in shock. And a whopping 35% were furious, mostly at Facebook.
We saw some clues Monday that Instagram users were heading for the exits after the announcement, using services that help you download your Instagram photos before deleting your account. According to this analysis, roughly 40,000 Twitter users declared that they had deleted their account or removed the app from their phone.
Why all the negativity, man? Well, Twitter is a good place for capturing instant emotional reactions, and a beloved app like Instagram certainly inspires a lot of those. (Mashable entertainment editor Christina Warren yesterday described her "InstaEmo" moment; she was by no means alone.)
But there's something else going on here. If anyone is likely to lose big from Facebook's purchase of Instagram, it is Twitter users.
As regular Instagrammers know, one of the first choices you have to make in sharing your photo -- after you've applied tilt shift and filters -- is which social network you're going to share it with.
The two big sharing choices? Twitter and Facebook. No prizes for guessing which of those options may disappear, should Facebook get its way.
Of course, Facebook has gone out of its way to assure users that sort of thing won't happen. "We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks," wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his blog post announcing the acquisition.
And there's always the chance that Facebook's resources could make Instagram better than before.