Andre Yoskowitz
3 Jun 2010 12:59
Last October, billionaires Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the creators of the Kazaa P2P client as well as Skype, announced that they had developed and financed a new unlimited music subscription service dubbed Rdio.
This week, the service has finally launched, working both through a Web browser and on a number of smartphones including Android devices, BlackBerrys and the iPhone.
The service offer unlimited, on-demand access to over five million tracks for a monthly fee of $4.99 USD for Web-only or $9.99 for Web and phone.
While that may sound similar to Rhapsody, which has a loyal, but small following, the founders are emphasizing that Rdio allows users to listen from anywhere in "the cloud," including through their phones, instead of needing to download DRM-laced music locally.
Rdio has content deals with EMI, Sony, UMG and Warner and hundreds of indies, so the selection won't be limited by any means.
The service also has social networking features, such as sharing with friends, which was a staple of Lala and Microsoft's Zune platforms.