Convert Your Soon-To-Be Defunct Oinks To More Positive Cheers
March 16, 2012
In the wake of the announcement of the sudden discontinuation of Oink, users of the app are, understandably, none too happy. Their favorite omni-ratings app is going kaput by March 31, a mere five months after it was released in the wild.
Oink is an iPhone app-based project by Digg founder Kevin Rose's startup app developing studio Milk Inc., which has been acquired by Google. As a result of the acquisition, Rose and company are moving on to other projects aimed at improving the search giant's social networking ventures and are abandoning Oink altogether. Users who have found so much to enjoy in the app as to call themselves Oinkers are disappointed at Milk Inc. for the company's apparent indifference over the matter of ending a service with an established user base without so much as a notice at least a month in advance.
Fortunately, Oinkers have the option to become Cheerers instead, or Cheerfluencers even. Cheers, a ratings app for iPhone made by Cheerful Inc., is offering Oink users a tool to import their Oink data to Cheers. If you're one of the many dissatisfied Oinkers and you wish to migrate to Cheers instead, you first have to download your Oink content by entering your Oink username or email address in the correct field on this page. Next, just upload your Oink data, along with your Cheers username or email address and password, on this page. As soon as your Oink data is successfully processed by Cheers' servers, your Oink ratings are automatically converted to Cheers ratings.
While Oink lets (present tense still, that is, until the end of the month) you rate anything around you with favorable or disapproving "oinks," Cheers is significantly different in that it only allows positive ratings. These positive ratings, which can be of places, things or even persons, are appropriately called "cheers." As Cheers founder Farhad Mohit puts it, "all positive oinks (the vast majority of Oink content) fit naturally under 'Cheers to things or places.' So, we hope Oinkers will find a more cheerful home with us at Cheers."
Unsurprisingly, Oink can no longer be downloaded in the App Store. Cheers, on the other hand, is very much alive and available for free for your iPhone. You can take our word for it: Cheers is no pig in a poke.
