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Google To Buy Mobile App Milk

Word is that Google is buying up most of mobile app incubator Milk, including its young founder Kevin Rose -- a curious deal, according to Web watchers, considering that Milk has yet to produce anything of substance.

One possibility is that Google is betting on Rose, best know for founding Digg, to add a little luster to its products. “Rose has an avid online following, stemming from his days as a host on TechTV and the long-running podcast ‘Diggnation,’ AllThingsD writes. “That kind of ongoing fan engagement could be a boon to Google+, which has been criticized for low engagement and tricky user accounting.”

Seconds The Register: “We at Vulture Central think it's a desperate effort from Google to appear down-wid-the-kids by coming up, er, roses. To push that metaphor a little further [cough] – the ex-Digg man could even end up being a thorn in Google's side.”

“Rose's pedigree and brand name apparently made him an attractive target for Google, which had already invested money in Milk through its Google Ventures investment arm,” writes eConsultancy.com.

Putting the price of the deal at around $15 million, TechCrunch passes along the believable rumor that Rose and the Milk crew will be heavily involved in Google’s social efforts. But can Rose really fix Google’s social strategy? “Since Digg, critics say, [Rose] hasn't accomplished anything of note and has thrived solely by leveraging his personal brand and connections,” eConsultancy writes.

Calling the move “strange and depressing,” SiliconBeat.com suggests that the “return for such a short-term investment in a company and team that accomplished pretty close to zero seems disproportionate.”

Milk’s debut app, Oink -- a hyper-local recommendations app -- achieved about 150,000 downloads in its first month, but was just unceremoniously shut down. Considering Milk’s lack of successes, SiliconBeat adds: “What is Google actually getting for its money that it couldn’t get from a stack of applications flooding its databases?”

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