Rdio is Now Free on the Web

http://blog.rdio.com/us/2014/01/keep-the-music-playing-rdio-is-now-free-on-the-web.html

by oakaz • 13 years ago

168 103 13 years ago

blog.rdio.com

jlas• 13 years ago

Must be in response to Spotify's similar policy change: http://news.spotify.com/uk/2014/01/15/no-more-time-limits-on...

glennos2• 13 years ago

Seems like it. If so, that was quick turnaround!

kevincennis2• 13 years ago

I doubt it's purely a response. They mentioned that they're going to be inserting advertising into the streams now for free users, which isn't something you build out in a day. I'm sure they've been planning this for a while. Maybe the Spotify announcement forced them to announce and release it sooner than they were planning, though.

jemeshsu• 13 years ago

Both are response to coming launch of Beats Music.

TarpitCarnivore2• 13 years ago

They cut a deal with Cumulus back in September to help make this possible. It's probably just coincidence, though they may have rushed it out the door after Spotify did the same. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/business/media/a-digital-d...

ddt• 13 years ago

I can't possibly recommend Rdio enough. The design is simple and intuitive. State transfers nicely between devices.

Even little things are pleasantly surprising. If I have my laptop hooked up to speakers at a party playing through Rdio, I can change the song from my phone.

The only thing it doesn't have that I'd like is Grooveshark-esque queue building. Every music player could just lift Grooveshark's queueing system wholesale and everyone would be much happier.

slohr• 13 years ago

I completely agree. Rdio is the first music streaming site that really pulled me in. The clean design is pleasant and the multi-device support is superb. The autoplay functionality has introduced me to a ton of excellent music I didn't even know existed. I suppose other sites do the same thing but they never got me in the door like Rdio did.

dominotw2• 13 years ago

I was a Rdio customer for over an year and I had to switch to spotify because of how bad the streaming on the iphone app was.

onedev2• 13 years ago

What's wrong with it? I use it daily and haven't had the level of issues that you suggest.

stdgy2• 13 years ago

I'd like to add that both their Android and iPhone apps are extremely impressive. Very well designed, and a joy to use.

My only complaint with the service so far is that they haven't made adding gapless playback a priority.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

I didn't find the Android app impressive at all. Far too many technical issues with connectivity.

markolschesky• 13 years ago

I'm always really impressed by the detail put into Rdio. Dragging a song allows me to drag it into a playlist or to share it with friends. In HTML5/Javascript? That's pretty rad.

Spotify feels way too much like iTunes to me. That's not a compliment. My only fear is that I've picked the wrong side in this one and that Rdio will be gone soon enough.

philsnow• 13 years ago

I hadn't visited the site in a while, and within 60 seconds I found an irritating UI issue: When you're playing an "artist station" there's a slider thing from "artist only" to "adventurous" (which is awesome because the lack of this is the reason I never listen to Pandora).

However, when you change the slider, it advances the song (whether or not the current song is by the station's artist).

dmourati• 13 years ago

Reported that to rdio. No word back but ya, bug.

hipsters_unite• 13 years ago

Yeah, I've noticed that one as well, wasn't sure if it was intentional or a bug.

2mur• 13 years ago

Another satisfied customer here too. Happily paying the family subscription for my wife and I.

onedev2• 13 years ago

I absolutely love Rdio as well. It's a shame more of my friends aren't on it.

enra• 13 years ago

I also switched from Spotify some time ago. I was Spotify user and subscriber since their beta around 2009 but in the recent years the apps seemed were more and more complex, sometimes buggy and the design just worse and worse.

Now I'm a happy Rdio subscriber. I just wish they would have real native desktop client.

foogered• 13 years ago

They do: http://www.rdio.com/apps/ (unless you are looking for a Linux desktop client)

lotso• 13 years ago

Agreed. Rdio is heads and shoulders above Spotify in both interaction and visual design.

fleetfox• 13 years ago

Sadly stability is subpar. I migrated to Spotify only because Android app was constantly crashing.

kevincennis2• 13 years ago

Agreed. I've been using Rdio for maybe two years now, and there's just something about the experience that's hard to explain, but feels a lot better than Spotify to me. Initially, their big selling point for me was just the fact that they had a web app at a time when Spotify didn't, but now that they both work in the browser, I still think Rdio is a way better experience.

That said, the way that search works on their iOS app does tend to frustrate me. Search for an artist, play one of their songs, go back to search, and your query plus all the results are gone. I kinda just wish that they'd keep them there for me, since I usually wanna find another song by the same artist after that. Maybe that's not actually a common use case though.

ianhawes2• 13 years ago

Absolutely love Rdio too, but you're also completely right about search on their iOS app. Not only does it not take you back to the results, but when searching for a song or artist, for whatever reason it does not prioritize for what's synced to your phone. Overall, amazing service with a great UI, but search needs some improvements.

shawnc• 13 years ago

Another lover of Rdio - been a paying subscriber for 2.5 years and gave it as a gift to three friends, plus on the family plan for my wife, brother and I. It's awesome.

hcarvalhoalves• 13 years ago

I'm more critical. The quality of the apps has been going down lately.

The UX of the desktop and mobile apps turned into a mess after they introduced a bunch of sliding panes, and the iOS app crashes so much I don't bother with it anymore.

I'm still a subscriber because it's one of the few streaming services available outside US, otherwise I would be looking at alternatives.

harlanlewis• 13 years ago

This is valid criticism, and shouldn't be getting downvoted just because people disagree.

I'm a huge Rdio fan and love almost all aspects of its design, but (especially on iOS) I regularly get confused as to where I am and how to get back. A few moment's thought (or just fumbling between panels) gets me where I'm going, but there are simply too many almost-the-same-but-actually-different panels sliding around to be intuitive. It's particularly messy when trying to juggle browsing music with a managing a currently playing playlist.

buttscicles• 13 years ago

The android app isn't any better. It regularly refuses to skip tracks (instead restarting the current one), displays different tracks to the one it's actually playing and the offline mode is useless for everything beyond playing music (I can't add a track to a playlist, why?)

mrcwinn• 13 years ago

I recently switched back to Spotify. Rdio's "web app inside a native app" really kills the experience for me personally, though I'm sure from a dev experience it's a lot less to manage. The app feels slow. Sometimes it refreshes to a blank screen.

But the worst thing - a good part of my collection has gone "unavailable" as they lose music licenses. It's the risk you take when you're subscribing to music, but it seems to not happen as frequently on Spotify - at least for me. On one Rdio mix playlist I had, for example, nearly 40% of the tracks became available. Really a bummer. I liked Rdio's simplicity, but for me personally, the experience was really lousy.

FireBeyond4• 13 years ago

There’s definitely an iOS 7 bug where when you view an album, you can only see the first few tracks, as the scroller “snaps” back.

But nonetheless, versus Pandora? I’m leaving my Pandora One sub behind.

amorphid• 13 years ago

I used to be a premium subscriber to Pandora. After growing tired of Pandora's limitations, specifically a hard cap of 100 custom stations, I looked around and for Radio.

I liked Pandora a lot. I LOVE Rdio. It's gorgeous, robust, and flexible. Great product.

__mp• 13 years ago

I actually prefer Spotify to Rdio. Mainly because it's really easy to find playlists from other users and because the multimedia buttons work out of box. I follow ~5 people who have these huge > 1000 song playlists that get updated daily. Practically a constant stream of new music that I like.

https://play.spotify.com/user/rmeijerink/playlist/0owSCmXQJw... https://play.spotify.com/user/xbrett82/playlist/2eheCERq82SL... https://play.spotify.com/user/pbrown148/playlist/3r46U16o2yl...

Unfortunately Spotify doesn't provide an easy way to manage playlists. Yes, there are folders but once you have 100ish playlists it kind of gets difficult.

If I wanted to migrate I would want to copy these playlists form Spotify to Rdio, which is nearly impossible without a lot of manual labour.

And then there's the audio quality. The songs constantly sound better on Spotify than on Rdio (that's at least my impression).

Ah and for me Spotify is actually cheaper than Rdio (I have Spotify premium for offline mobile support). The mobile playlist sync feature is awesome: I don't have to touch the phone in order for Spotify to update my offline playlists (on Android at least) for all the playlists I have tagged on my phone.

michaelmior2• 13 years ago

Free "in the US" on the Web. Too bad :(

glennos2• 13 years ago

I don't envy the licence negotiations they must go through, but I'm always disappointed when these announcements are country limited.

In their defence, I notice that the blog is name spaced as "US". Still, boo.

pikachu_is_cool• 13 years ago

VPN.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

Just use MediaHint or Hola. Boom - open web again.

motyar• 13 years ago

Thank you

michaelmior2• 13 years ago

I assume that's probably against the ToS. If I have to break the law to access it, I don't consider it very open.

notatoad• 13 years ago

I'm not going to complain too much, RDIO is the only streaming service available to me in canada. I'm grateful to them just for existing, if they can't be free that's okay.

Grue3• 13 years ago

It should be called false advertising when one refers to a US-only service as being "on the Web" (which is short for World Wide Web).

TheHippo• 13 years ago

Works in Germany to. Maybe just in some selected countries.

tptacek• 13 years ago

Should I be worried about Rdio? I am happy to pay Rdio a relative pittance for continued access to music. I'm less happy if they're in a tailspin that is going to destroy the quality of their catalog.

stdgy2• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, worrying seems prudent. While I suspect this move had been planned for some time, it follows on the heels of a large layoff that decimated (triple-decimated, if the 30% number is to be believed) the company.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/19/5123004/rdio-lays-off-emp...

The music streaming business seems like an extraordinarily difficult place to compete.

kisielk• 13 years ago

That may have to do with their cancellation of the Vdio service. I was a beta tester of the service but received an email last month that it was being cancelled.

TarpitCarnivore2• 13 years ago

I think their exposure and catalog may grow because of the deal they cut with Cumulus. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/business/media/a-digital-d...

Dewie• 13 years ago

I might buy their mid-tier plan and cancel my Spotify subscription. I was planning on downgrading my Spotify subscription, but it seems that their mid-tier plan (the one that cost half that of premium) is gone now.

caipre• 13 years ago

I think it's still available, just not advertised on the main page. When editing my subscription, the $4.99/month option was still there.

Void_• 13 years ago

anywhere there’s a computer

In the US.

jld• 13 years ago

How does the Rdio library compare to Spotify's?

ianhawes2• 13 years ago

Spotify, I think, has a slightly larger portfolio. But in most cases, if Spotify doesn't have it, Rdio won't either.

oakaz• 13 years ago

Same

dorkrawk• 13 years ago

So what is going to happen to the $4.99/month "Web only" tier?

aye• 13 years ago

I'm wondering the same -- I had just switched from the $9.99 plan to the $4.99, because I only listen to Rdio on my computers (at home or work). Maybe I'll start streaming vinyl over MPD, or some fool thing.

perryh2• 13 years ago

I'm on the "Web only" plan. The free tier will have ads.

pstack2• 13 years ago

That's his point - what is happening to that subscription level? The RDIO post only says "we now have that service, but ad supported and if you don't want that, you can pay $10 for our unlimited service".

So what is happening to the $5/mo service that is the same as the now-ad-supported service, but without the ads? I listen to an average of less than one song per day and only need it on my desktop, laptop, ipad, etc -- so there is no way I'm paying $10/mo for what used to be $5 and if I wanted to listen to ads, I'd just turn on terrestrial radio.

computerbob• 13 years ago

I am also on the $4.99/month plan. From what I can see is that for people already on the plan it stays the same. The article reads that if you are subscriped to a plan you will not be moved. I assume they will keep the $5 because the only difference is no ads vs the free version.

xordon• 13 years ago

Only Free in the US. I find it super annoying when companies don't realize that the internet IS global.

baddox• 13 years ago

Most likely, the companies that make this decision are the publishers.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

This is correct. At my current place of employment, we have to deal with music licensing issues from various catalog providers. I mean this with no hyperbole, it is insanity dealing with music rights.

MrAlmostWrong• 13 years ago

I love Rdio. Bought my finacée, my brother, my mother, and my father subscriptions.

ireadzalot• 13 years ago

Just subscribed!

paul9290• 13 years ago

can I play and control audio in sync across all my devices with rdio? Is that a feature they offer yet?

gol7062• 13 years ago

Play no, control yes. It's still pretty cool at a party to hook up my laptop to my speakers, and be able to walk around and queue up songs from my phone.

founder4fun• 13 years ago

Strange none of the big players are offering play & control audio in sync. There are a few native (seedio, tunemob) and web apps (speakerblast) that offer this already.

Xeroday2• 13 years ago

In terms of sound quality, Rdio streams at 192 kbps and Spotify Free at 160 kbps.

pstack2• 13 years ago

Actually, RDIO has never been forthright about what quality they stream in.

From their customer support in their knowledge-base:

-------- "We're not currently providing specific bitrate or codec information. We experiment with different rates and encoding formats in an effort to provide the best possible listening and user-experience, and stream CD-quality audio over the web and wifi (for mobile devices), and only stream a lower bitrate if you’re on a 3G connection.

We realize that is not be as much detail as you’d like, and we apologize for this — if you have feedback about Rdio’s sound quality as you're listening, please do let us know." --------

Xeroday2• 13 years ago

Looking at network flows from rdio servers reveals that the mp3 chunks are actually 192 kbps.

brackin• 13 years ago

Okay but Spotify premium streams at 320kbps all ogg vorbis.

lozf• 13 years ago

That's bitrate, which doesn't necessarily correlate to "sound quality". Vorbis at 160 kbps usually sounds better than MP3 at 192 kbps.

prezjordan• 13 years ago

Rdio, please release your streaming quality figures. I'll return as a customer, I promise - please just be more transparent about this sort of thing.

The reason I say this is because the quality is noticeably worse than Spotify, and I feel they won't release the numbers because they know they can't compete.

I just want some transparency. The UI and experience is beautiful, but the quality is lacking.

FireBeyond4• 13 years ago

Last I read (which was this morning actually), it was noted that Spotify’s “low/regular” quality is 192kbps, and high is 320, and Rdio is at 192.

torbit• 13 years ago

I switched mostly from Rdio to Spotify. I used rdio since it started, but spotify's radio based off a playlist is great. I get more discovery songs this way. I also have non-english songs that aren't on rdio, but I can add them in Spotify. I do love rdio's new album page better.

jonheller• 13 years ago

Sadly, just left Rdio after two years because of the sound quality. I do miss the interface, though I actually find Spotify's a bit faster.

aristus• 13 years ago

...with really annoying ads played at 150% gain.

nettletea6• 13 years ago

Like the TV then. Weirdly the ITV player in the UK has completely pathetic sound on the adverts that you can hardly hear, which makes them a little more bearable.

collinvandyck76• 13 years ago

I love rdio, but what is up with the lack of gapless playback? I love continuous albums, and even for the lack of being able to play these without the annoying silences between tracks I still prefer rdio, but this is the biggest issue I have right now with the service.

unicornporn• 13 years ago

I can only listen to 30 seconds of the songs. I have not logged in to Rdio for over a year, so it couldn't be the monthly limit still being in effect.

Anybody else experience this?

nettletea6• 13 years ago

If you read the homepage, it suggests free accounts get access for 6 months.

BadassFractal• 13 years ago

What's the difference between this and Spotify?

nettletea6• 13 years ago

Spotify desktop app Linux uses about 11% of my CPU, Rdio / Chrome uses a shade over 30%.

(Having said that the Spotify app's windowing is a bit ugly and glitchy for me. I think it's a Qt app and I mainly have GTK apps.)

MattBearman• 13 years ago

Having been a Spotify premium subscriber for over 2 years, I've just decided to switch to Rdio for one simple reason - Collections.

I've been wishing Spotify had this functionality for as long as I've been using it. Time to call it a day and go else where for my music.

Also the spotify iPhone app is shit, but I haven't used Rdio's enough yet to compare.

jamesmoss2• 13 years ago

Spotify is about to roll out Collections. Searching for spotify:app:collection in the desktop client enables it for some people, although it didn't for me.

dan12342• 13 years ago

It's free on the Web… in the US.

With my UK account, I get "You're out of free music. Subscribe now for unlimited music."

nettletea6• 13 years ago

How many plays/mins until you run out?

dan12342• 13 years ago

I got a trial of 7 days unlimited plays.

malvim• 13 years ago

Went there in a rush, only to find out that "starting today Rdio is free IN THE US on the web" (emphasis mine). Bummer.

nettletea6• 13 years ago

Just signed up. A couple of weird issues, I was presented with people to follow. I had no idea who these people were, and wondered what it meant to follow them. I managed to skip that step. Then I couldn't find a search box to find any artists or songs to play. It was buried down the bottom left of the page. I then typed in an artist, then clicked on an album, and got some music. Then the UI flipped, with a nice big search on top.

Took me a while to find out what a free, unsubscribed account was.

The design is really washed out. Very lightweight grey fonts that are very difficult to read. It's all a bit white and bright. Stylbot for Chrome helps a little there as there aren't any user settings to change the colour scheme.

Oh some mystery meat navigation, click on the bottom bar to bring up the current playlist. Actually you have to do quite a bit of click experimentation, to find out what the icons do. Would be nice to have some hover tips.

Oh and you can scroll the playlist, it's not at all obvious!

Gripes aside, quite nice. Will see how I get on with it.

jamesmoss2• 13 years ago

I really want to love Rdio.

I switched from Spotify 8 months ago and at first it was a breathe of fresh air but I soon started noticing issues with the desktop client. It's just a UIWebView that loads the web app. Album artwork loads slowly if you've got a large collection, UI interactions are unresponsive and will often time out.

The other major issue is having albums in your collection become unplayable due to what looks like licensing issues, only to reappear months later as the same album, except not in your collection. Spotify doesn't seem to have this issue.

FireBeyond4• 13 years ago

I used to notice the album licensing issue, but it seems to be resolved now (perhaps it's a flag now, rather than a deletion).

kraag22• 13 years ago

US only. Great :(

circa• 13 years ago

I love being able to click on an actual Record Label name and seeing what they have released lately. That is huge for me.

e12e• 13 years ago

Might want to add "the U.S. web" to title...

GotNothing• 13 years ago

Having the ability to listen to music from one source is important to many and Rdio has no "Local File" support. This is necessary for artists/albums Rdio doesn't have in it's library and it's a reason myself and many others won't ever make the jump from Spotify.

locusm• 13 years ago

Sadly I had to drop Rdio for Google Music as the PiMusicBox couldnt support their flash only API. They dont provide a stream via API.

Rdio is Now Free on the Web

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