Microsoft has killed its Kin social phone line just a few weeks after it launched.  Gizmodo reports that the company has merged the whole Kin team into the Windows Phone 7 team.  Rumors suggest that a mere 500 Kins have been sold to date, and while the figure’s probably higher than that, it might explain such a large project being folded so suddenly.

Kin was accompanied by some strange advertising, but the biggest problem was that Verizon only offered Kin phones with its $30 monthly smartphone data plan.  Kin was supposed to be a cheaper, social-oriented alternative to a smartphone, but without a cheaper data plan, it became almost pointless.  Even drastic price cuts to just $20/$50 for the Kin One/Two (from $50/100) didn’t help, and Microsoft’s ads promoting Kin as a Windows Phone just caused further confusion.

Read on for the full story behind Kin’s demise.

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