On-demand music service Rdio announced a new affiliation with Musicians for Audio Quality, headed by The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir. Putting its product where its affiliation is, Rdio is dramatically upgrading its entire 25-million-track library to hi-fi … or at least higher-fi. Hi-fi mobile music is a somewhat controversial concept, but is building momentum as a trend. Continue Reading
Introducing Internet Radio REWIND, an audio recap of the week. This weekly program is a quick (six minutes) and concise catch-up of the week’s top stories. Click the Play button and be ready for the coming week. this week: Bette Midler, Spotify and Sprint, Pandora’s latest lawsuit, Rdio’s Brazilian blockbuster, and Pono Music. Continue Reading
In a deal similar to the partnership they announced with Cumulus last fall, Rdio and Grupo Bandeirantes have announced a joint venture and powerful strategic partnership encompassing marketing, distribution, content and promotions that will significantly expand Rdio’s presence in Brazil. (by Jennifer Lane) Continue Reading
Rdio announced a new feature in its partnership with music-identification app Shazam, raising the game in an escalating rivalry with competing service SoundHound. The new feature enables users to take any song from Shazam’s Pulse service, which is a trending chart of popular song IDs, and throw it into an Rdio playlist. Continue Reading
In an interesting and opportunistic maneuver, U.S.-based music service Rdio has acquired teetering Indian streaming platform Dhingana. Dhingana will power Rdio’s India launch sometime this year. The Indian music business is estimated at $170-million, mostly comprised of Bollywood (or “filmi”) songs. Around the edges, Indipop, regional music, devotional songs, and infiltrations of Western pop are additional categories. Continue Reading
In what could be described as the first crack in The Echo Nest’s music-powering empire, Rdio CEO Anthony Bay told CNBC that his music service would end its relationship with the music-data company. The Echo Nest was acquired by Spotify last week, and Bay doesn’t want his user metrics visible to a competitor. Continue Reading
Anthony Bay, appointed CEO of on-demand music service Rdio, will speak at RAIN Summit West on April 6 in Las Vegas. Anthony Bay was appointed CEO of Rdio in December after a five-month search. He was formerly GM of the Digital Media Division at Microsoft. Rdio’s business alliance with Cumulus Media creates a major entity that straddles across broadcast and Internet audio. Continue Reading
In what appears to be a targeted competitive thrust, song-identification platform SoundHound announced an app update that connects more substantially to music subscription service Spotify. Competitive strategy against Shazam and its recently completed deal with Rdio? Continue Reading
Cumulus Media conducted its earning call yesterday, during which CEO Lew Dickey spoke about the partnership with music subscription service Rdio, and about online music generally. Dickey’s remarks evangelized the values of streaming music, and recognized migration away from downloading. Continue Reading
Rdio updated its iOS mobile apps with two important features that exist already in the desktop experience. With U.S. listening migrating to mobile from the desktop, it is increasingly important for music apps to provide an unbroken feature set across all their installations. Continue Reading
Revenue for music apps grew 77% in 2013, year-over-year, according a the App Annie Index: 2013 Retrospective report. The report studied income derived from both free (with in-app upgrades) and paid apps. Pandora led the field. Continue Reading
Expanding a deal struck earlier this month, Rdio and Shazam now announce that their collaboration is extended to 29 non-U.S. countries. The still-new feature lets Rdio subscribers create an auto-playlist that holds all of their Shazam-ID’d music. Continue Reading