AllThingsD is reporting that super-founder Kevin Rose is joining Google. Well, that’s part of the story … the other part is that the entire Milk product team, including Rose, will be joining the search giant, in an acqui-hire type deal where the investors will get a return.
Google is not picking up the Oink app itself or the technology. Rumor has it that Rose and the crew will be heavily involved in Google’s continuing social efforts.
We’re also hearing that Milk’s investors were happy with the deal, the price of which was somewhere in the range of $15 million to $30 million. The price was driven up through Milk’s negotiations with Facebook, which also wanted the incredibly talented team of eight.
Milk, which raised a total of $1.7 million from Dave Morin, Philip Rosedale, Evan Williams, Shervin Pishevar and others was experimenting with a new model of app iteration.
The Oink app itself shut down yesterday.
Update: While I originally reported that Google had acqui-hired the entire Milk team, Milk’s iOS engineer Dave Peck tells me that Google primarily went after the product team which includes Rose, designer Daniel Burka, Chris Hutchins and Josh Lane. Peck and Amber Reyngoudt are working on iOS consulting company Skull Ninja Inc. It’s unclear what co-founder Jeff Hodsdon will be doing. Also, I’m hearing independently that the deal went for less than $15 million. Will keep you posted!