Mr. Rose. (flickr.com/joi)

It appears we now have a concrete reason for Oink's mysterious shuttering yesterday. Kevin Rose, Internet cutie pie and ex-overlord of Diggnation, has been hired by Google. According to AllThingsD, "Google is not outright buying or 'acqhiring' Milk, the sources explicitly said, but Rose and some others from the company have been hired."

The move actually makes complete sense, considering that Milk Inc. has produced nothing but one failed app since it started in 2011. All signs indicate that Milk itself will be shut down, with its employees transitioning to Google.

Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of Google, invested in Milk in 2011, with Google Maps serving as a critical component to Oink's functionality. Milk is still listed as one of Google Ventures' companies in their portfolio.

"Rose wants to build in more Google technology in future updates," TechCrunch said of Milk last year. Guess nothing's stopping him now.

Mr. Rose is also the only person in the entire known universe actively using Google+. Even his website kevinrose.com redirects users back to his Google+ profile. That's what we call a dedicated brand advocate, folks.

Mr. Rose's first day at Google is supposedly on Monday, and we wish him the best. The food at the Googleplex is to die for; too bad Oink isn't around to rate it.

UPDATE:

Google was actually in a bidding war with Facebook to snap up Milk's employees, reports TechCrunch. This is a pure talent acquisition: Mr. Rose and the rest of Milk will be joining the social team at Google for the small price of $15-30 million.