Skip to main content

Rdio Lights up (Yet Another) Subscription Music Service

With Napster, Rhapsody and even newcomers like MOG hawking all-you-can play music for about the same price, the market for subscription music services is already packed shoulder to shoulder with vendors. They’ll all have to shove aside and make room for one more this week with the introduction of Rdio, a new service from the brains behind Skype, Kazaa and Joost.

After opening a private, invite-only beta in June, Rdio’s library of 7 million songs went live Tuesday. The service matches the pricing of competitors with $4.99 monthly subscriptions for desktop streaming, or $9.99 to gain access on mobile devices as well. At launch, Rdio has apps for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry operating systems.

Recommended Videos

What makes Rdio different from the swarms of competitors? Cofounders Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström hope the simplified interface and Twitter-like social networking aspects will make it easier for users to stumble upon music they like. For instance, like Twitter, users can follow and be followed by other users. They can also write reviews for different songs, albums, and artists, browse top charts based on collective listening habits, and view songs specifically recommended for them based on songs already added to their libraries.

Rdio will also lower the barrier of entry for its free trial by eliminating the need for a credit card – something most other services require in hopes of roping new users in. However, Rdio’s free trial will last only three days after signing up.

Check out our comparison of the top streaming music services compared for an overview of competitors including Napster, Rhapsody and eMusic.

Nick Mokey
As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…
Tourists are renting robotic legs to climb up a mountain
People hiking up a mountain.

For many vacationers, a trip might involve a challenging climb up a mountain for a spot of exercise and to enjoy the amazing views from the top, the sense of satisfaction enhanced by all of the effort expended to reach the peak.

But for some tourists taking on Mount Tai in Shandong, China, the required exertion seems like a waste of ... well ... energy. Especially when a pair of robotic legs can do the job instead.

Read more
Grok 3 launch confirmed as 10 times more powerful than previous model
Elon Musk and the xAI team launching Grok 3

Elon Musk and the xAI team announced the Grok 3 AI model in an evening live stream on Monday.

The team detailed that the new model is "a magnitude more capable" than Grok 2, indicating Grok 3 has 10 to 15 times more power than Grok 2. They also claim that Grok 3 is more powerful than its AI model competitors such as DeekSeek and Google Gemini.

Read more
xAI’s Grok-3 is impressive, but it needs to do a lot more to convince me
Tool-picker dropdown for Grok-3 AI.

Elon Musk-led xAI has announced their latest AI model, Grok-3, via a livestream. From the get-go, it was evident that the company wants to quickly fill all the practical gaps that can make its chatbot more approachable to an average user, rather than just selling rhetoric about wokeness and understanding the universe.

The company will be releasing two versions of its latest AI model viz. Grok-3 and Grok-3 mini. The latter is trained for low-compute scenarios, while the former will offer the full set of Grok-3 perks such as DeepSearch, Think, and Big Brain.
What’s all the fuss about

Read more