Edible Apple

Quite fascinatingly, Liz Gannes reports that Digg founder and all-around Web 2.0 maven Kevin Rose has been hired by Google.

It remains unclear what Rose’s role within the company will be, but something social is undoubtedly a safe bet. The hiring comes at an interesting time, or perhaps not, given that Rose’s latest venture – the app incubator Milk – announced yesterday that its first app (Oink) would be discontinued. Notably, Oink netted 150,000 downloads in its first month of availability.

Google is not outright buying or “acquiring” Milk, the sources explicitly said, but Rose and some others from the company have been hired. It’s not clear what will happen to Milk after Rose joins Google.

Google declined to comment and Rose did not reply to multiple requests.

Rose’s first day at Google is to be this Monday, the sources said.

Also note that Google Ventures was an investor in Milk.

Rose of course is a tech web celeb stemming from his involvement with Digg and the uber-popular Diggnation podcast he co-hosted with Alex Albrecht. Could Rose’s new job at Google be a play to leverage Rose’s popularity to help increase visibility for Google+?

Gannes also points out that Google, back in 2008, actually made moves to acquire Digg before the deal ultimately fell through.

via All Things D