The 56th annual Grammy Awards have reportedly chosen Rdio to power its official app. No musical streaming is happening in the app now, two days before the ceremony. Get the streams flowing! (You can hear nominee streams within the Rdio app, furnished by TheGrammys profile.) Continue Reading
It’s as if Beats Music were a meteor headed for earth, and inhabitants on the ground were feeling the heat of its approach. Rdio has followed Spotify, making its web listening free and unlimited. Even Pandora has added a feature to counter Beats Music’s emphasis on curated listening. Continue Reading
British rock band Oasis has yielded to time and trend, adding its 10 albums (representing over 70-million album sales) to Spotify, Rhapsody, Deezer, and Rdio. As usual with announcements like this, but rarely mentioned, YouTube already carries Oasis extensively, with full albums, live performances, official videos, and the band’s own YouTube channel. Continue Reading
“We have decided to discontinue the Vdio beta service.” That abrupt announcement greets visitors to Vdio.com, Rdio’s once-sister service that sought to be a distribution site for movies in the Netflix-Hulu-iTunes-Amazon space. Rdio’s portfolio adjustment seems to be a case of trimming its sails and consolidating its bets. Continue Reading
Spotify isn’t the only service expanding internationally this week. Rdio is keeping pace, adding 22 countries for a total of 51 national markets. After recent layoffs, Rdio promised to scale its business. It just did. Continue Reading
Two weeks after restructuring its costs via workforce downsizing (in other words, layoffs), Rdio has named a new CEO. Anthony Bay, former head of digital video at Amazon, replaces outgoing CEO Drew Larner, who becomes vice-chair of Rdio’s board. Larner… Continue Reading
Rdio, competing for audience in a crowded online-music market, made significant workforce reductions to lower costs. Layoffs are reported to have carved out about a third of the company. In the wake of the layoffs, Rdio made confident noises about its future destiny, but it looks like a rocky road from here.
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Last week’s drop of Google’s All Access music subscription app into Apple’s app store was a milestone moment in both the music-service wars and the larger tech-ecosystem land grab. We had fun with our “Google invades Apple” headline, and every media site covering the convergence of music and Internet hit the same note.
The invasion metaphor is apt, more than just for its imagery of two tech/media giants engaged in business warfare. Google’s Play Music All Access, awkwardly-named thought it might be, offers a more complete music platform than Apple does — and likewise for Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Rdio. Continue Reading
Listn is a music app owned by MFive Labs that expands the social possibilities of music listening by connecting people, and their music collections, across platforms and services. The company received $500-thousand in seed funding this week, giving it a… Continue Reading
In the conforming world of subscription music services, many of which share the same broad features, it is easy to assume that they exist in parity, competing on the basis of design rather than function. But then one of those… Continue Reading
Wednesday lies at the week’s fulcrum point, and can make you feel stranded in a dim purgatory between weekends. At those times Cafe Cody (www.cafecody.com) is the pureplay music station of choice, able to carry you away sonically. Emanating from Palma… Continue Reading
Tom Taylor notes in his morning newsletter that all-Christmas radio is breaking out early on the broadcast side. Taylor’s interpretation: “Most are an attempt to lay claim to the local market’s Christmas image — even if it irritates regular listeners.”… Continue Reading