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.

Mr. Rose, via flickr.com/joi

Milk Inc., Digg founder Kevin Rose's new app shop, announced today that it was shutting down its first app project, Oink. The iPhone app was meant as a servicey rating tool, where users could highlight and rate specific aspects of a restaurant or bar, like meals or drinks. It saw fast growth upon release in November 2011, but apparently very little after the initial excitement died down.

Since resigning from the flailing Digg in March 2011, Mr. Rose has not had much luck with other ventures. His 2007 microblogging startup Pownce was acquired then immediately shut down by Six Apart. Oink is the only app Milk Inc. has yet to produce, though the company claims to adhere to the "rapid build and test" startup ideology. "Oink was our first test and, in preparing to move onto the next project, we've decided to shut it down to help focus our efforts," reads the statement on Oink.

Mr. Rose has not publicly addressed the shutdown on his Twitter page. We hope that doesn't mean he's crying over spilt milk.

via Stamped.com

The iTunes App Store got another offering to the ratings gods today. This one in the form of Stamped, a New York-based startup which boasts two Xooglers as co-founders, Bart Stein and Robby Stein (possible relations? Ed note: We've received word from Stamped's PR team that their last name is merely coincidental), and more Xooglers within its seven-person team.

When TechCrunch first reported on the app back in September, MG Siegler (in his pre-VC days—how quaint!) salivated over Stamped's simplicity, which boils recommendations down to whether or not you'd send something to your friends with a stamp of approval.  At the time, Mr. Siegler compared Stamped to Instagram when "Simplicity and speed won the day."

In a post today, Erick Schonfeld compares it more to Oink, Kevin Rose's app, which also lets you rate things on a granular level (a dinner entree, say, rather than a restaurant), except in a more structured way since Stamped lets your filter your recommendation stream by restaurants, books, movies, and music, rather than Oink's "free form hashtags. "

The value of a stamp is kept intact by starting users off with only 100 stamps. They can earn more by being active users and "like" something if it's not a whole-hearted recommendation. The more you rate things, the better it knows your interests.

The app sounds utilitarian, looks pretty, and seems to address a problem outlined in this recent article about how frictionless sharing drowns out the signal with noise. But our skepticism has to do with some of the issues Stamped brings up in its promotional video, namely that there are already so many apps and sites one needs to find recommendations from friends and strangers. Until we see how many "friends" opt in, it will be hard to tell if Stamped is a signal, or adding to the noise.

Stamped from Stamped on Vimeo.