At VentureBeat HQ, we’re twiddling our thumbs as we wait for official confirmation from Google that the search behemoth did, in fact, just hire Kevin Rose of Digg fame.
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A Googler writes to VentureBeat, “We don’t have anything to share at the moment.” In other words, Google can’t yet confirm the report, which is quite a different matter from a blanket denial.
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Rose, who previously founded link-sharing site Digg, had more recently moved on to start Milk, an incubator he founded in 2011.
Milk’s sole product was Oink, which was unceremoniously shuttered just yesterday. Oink, a less-than-successful iPhone app for tagging and rating real-life objects, had only launched last November.
Late last year, Google Ventures poured $1.5 million into Milk as a vote of confidence in Rose’s ability to create compelling products.
“It’s been nice to able to ping them when we have certain questions, and to tap into the vast amount of experience they’ve had when building out Google,” Rose previously told VentureBeat of that deal. “Like with any good investor, they’re sitting there on the sidelines, and they’re there when you need them,” he concluded.
In addition to the investment from Google Ventures, Milk also took $1.5 million from an A-list group of angel investors, including Menlo Ventures’ Shervin Pishevar, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and former Facebooker and current Path co-founder Dave Morin.
As Rose’s initial startup, Digg, began to show signs of decline, Rose himself had become more involved in the world of startup investment. His investments include Twitter, Zynga, and Facebook, as well as smaller startups such as Coffee & Power, Fab.com, and Path.
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Rose’s other entrepreneurial adventures included co-founder roles at Pownce, Revision3, and WeFollow.
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