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Rdio Announces Ad-Free, On-Demand Music Streaming

52 points by timjahn 15y ago

timjahn 15y ago
As a current paying Rdio user, I'm tempted to stop paying, use the free plan, and see if I listen to enough music a month to pay. Why not?
- blankenship 15y ago
  No reason, but personally-speaking, Rdio is one of the few apps I pay for every month that I appreciate so much and get so much value out of that I'll happily keep paying for it. I haven't opened iTunes (apart from syncing my phone) since Rdio launched. And I had a large-ish library of 25,000+ songs. Rdio, Dropbox and CloudApp are the only products I can think of that have completely changed my day to day in the last year.
andrewflnr 15y ago
I was going to try Spotify until they started requiring a Facebook login. I'll try this instead. I like the idea of a total per-month cap rather than a per-song per-month like Spotify apparently has.
- timjahn 15y ago
  I tried Spotify for a bit (after using Rdio a ton) and just couldn't get into it. The Rdio iPhone app is worlds better than Spotify and that's what I use mostly.
- bmelton 15y ago
  I haven't used Rdio, but Grooveshark (to my knowledge) predates both Rdio and Spotify, and is aces in my book. I don't know why it gets approximately one-millionth the press that Spotify and Rdio gets, but you should definitely check it out. Between Pandora (discovery) and Grooveshark (streaming catalog), all my music needs are met.
  - burke 15y ago
    The thing that has always turned me off of Grooveshark (compared to Rdio and friends) is extremely-poorly-curated content. Albums are frequently duplicated, mislabeled, out of order, and so on. That, and it's much more legally questionable.
    - tomjen3 15y ago
      Maybe, but it has a big advantage. It is available in my country. I don't care about the blurry lines of legality. If you don't want to sell it to me, why should it matter were I get it?
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  I have plenty of Spotify invites, if you or anyone wants to try it without using Facebook. My email's in my profile.
MatthewB 15y ago
They didn't have many other options with Spotify being free and ad-supported. Good move by Rdio, this model works for the majority of users. I'm not sure if the music industry is being dragged into this model kicking and screaming or they finally realized its potential. Either way, the consumer wins.
hkarthik 15y ago
This is a great example of how competition spurs innovation. Rdio has always been a great service with a poorly done trial period that probably discouraged a lot of people from using it long enough to love it. The only reason I stuck with it past two weeks was because my fellow geek friends pushed me to give it a shot since they loved it so much. Spotify definitely pushed them to re-evaluate this trial period and probably helped them push on the labels to offer them more profitable licensing deals for free users. Great to see the rising tide lifting up some other boats in the music industry.
tomjen3 15y ago
Apparently it is not available in my country. The level of incompetence among music executives continues to astonish me. If you don't want to sell it to me, why the fuck sue people for getting it from somebody else for free? Maybe we should buy some shares and get those idiots fired.
bennesvig 15y ago
I've tried both and love Rdio. The social aspects are so much better for music discovery.
joshfinnie 15y ago
This is awesome. I was kind of shocked, however, that it only found a handful of people from both Twitter and Facebook. Thought there were more people using Rdio. I am sure this new option will help!
trustfundbaby 15y ago
I hope they fix it up so that you don't have to have an account to listen to songs that rdio users send you (didn't work this way last I checked) ... I suspect it would be an incredibly smart way to get user to send rdio links to their friends and eventually have those new listeners sign up for accounts.
tptacek 15y ago
I just pay for Rdio and don't think about the details. Rdio has saved me hundreds of dollars this year that I'd have otherwise spent on iTMS for music. I don't have the bandwidth to sit around thinking about how much music I have "left", or coming up with ever more devious ways to avoid paying for it. Rdio is one of the better investments I've made in the past few years (I'm sure Spotify would be just as good). If you're considering forking a little cash over in order to stop wasting time planning what music you're going to have access to or how you're going to reach it, I say do it.
- kvnn 15y ago
  I also just pay for Rdio, and feel the same as you do. And their interface is excellent! While they executed plenty of features in a great way, this was the biggest thing for me. I build UI's and interacting with Rdio's is truly fun.

52 points by timjahn 15y ago

As a current paying Rdio user, I'm tempted to stop paying, use the free plan, and see if I listen to enough music a month to pay. Why not?

blankenship 15y ago
No reason, but personally-speaking, Rdio is one of the few apps I pay for every month that I appreciate so much and get so much value out of that I'll happily keep paying for it. I haven't opened iTunes (apart from syncing my phone) since Rdio launched. And I had a large-ish library of 25,000+ songs. Rdio, Dropbox and CloudApp are the only products I can think of that have completely changed my day to day in the last year.

andrewflnr 15y ago

I was going to try Spotify until they started requiring a Facebook login. I'll try this instead. I like the idea of a total per-month cap rather than a per-song per-month like Spotify apparently has.

timjahn 15y ago
I tried Spotify for a bit (after using Rdio a ton) and just couldn't get into it. The Rdio iPhone app is worlds better than Spotify and that's what I use mostly.
bmelton 15y ago
I haven't used Rdio, but Grooveshark (to my knowledge) predates both Rdio and Spotify, and is aces in my book. I don't know why it gets approximately one-millionth the press that Spotify and Rdio gets, but you should definitely check it out. Between Pandora (discovery) and Grooveshark (streaming catalog), all my music needs are met.
- burke 15y ago
  The thing that has always turned me off of Grooveshark (compared to Rdio and friends) is extremely-poorly-curated content. Albums are frequently duplicated, mislabeled, out of order, and so on. That, and it's much more legally questionable.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    Maybe, but it has a big advantage. It is available in my country. I don't care about the blurry lines of legality. If you don't want to sell it to me, why should it matter were I get it?
SkyMarshal 15y ago
I have plenty of Spotify invites, if you or anyone wants to try it without using Facebook. My email's in my profile.

MatthewB 15y ago

They didn't have many other options with Spotify being free and ad-supported. Good move by Rdio, this model works for the majority of users. I'm not sure if the music industry is being dragged into this model kicking and screaming or they finally realized its potential. Either way, the consumer wins.

hkarthik 15y ago

This is a great example of how competition spurs innovation. Rdio has always been a great service with a poorly done trial period that probably discouraged a lot of people from using it long enough to love it. The only reason I stuck with it past two weeks was because my fellow geek friends pushed me to give it a shot since they loved it so much. Spotify definitely pushed them to re-evaluate this trial period and probably helped them push on the labels to offer them more profitable licensing deals for free users. Great to see the rising tide lifting up some other boats in the music industry.

tomjen3 15y ago

Apparently it is not available in my country. The level of incompetence among music executives continues to astonish me. If you don't want to sell it to me, why the fuck sue people for getting it from somebody else for free? Maybe we should buy some shares and get those idiots fired.

bennesvig 15y ago

I've tried both and love Rdio. The social aspects are so much better for music discovery.

joshfinnie 15y ago

This is awesome. I was kind of shocked, however, that it only found a handful of people from both Twitter and Facebook. Thought there were more people using Rdio. I am sure this new option will help!

trustfundbaby 15y ago

I hope they fix it up so that you don't have to have an account to listen to songs that rdio users send you (didn't work this way last I checked) ... I suspect it would be an incredibly smart way to get user to send rdio links to their friends and eventually have those new listeners sign up for accounts.

tptacek 15y ago

I just pay for Rdio and don't think about the details. Rdio has saved me hundreds of dollars this year that I'd have otherwise spent on iTMS for music. I don't have the bandwidth to sit around thinking about how much music I have "left", or coming up with ever more devious ways to avoid paying for it. Rdio is one of the better investments I've made in the past few years (I'm sure Spotify would be just as good). If you're considering forking a little cash over in order to stop wasting time planning what music you're going to have access to or how you're going to reach it, I say do it.

kvnn 15y ago
I also just pay for Rdio, and feel the same as you do. And their interface is excellent! While they executed plenty of features in a great way, this was the biggest thing for me. I build UI's and interacting with Rdio's is truly fun.