Rdio pulls the plug on its Vdio movie service

Music streaming platform Rdio only launched its movie and TV spin-off Vdio back in April, but it has already decided that enough is enough. The company has announced it is shutting down Vdio with immediate effect, and is dishing out Amazon gift cards as compensation for any content you might have purchased.

“Despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for, and so Vdio is now closed,” the company said in an email to users who had signed up. “We want to thank you for trying Vdio, and we wish you a very happy New Year.”

It seems the heavyweight offerings from Netflix, Hulu and Amazon were just too well-established for Vdio to make a dent, though the service adopted a pay-as-you-go model along the lines of iTunes or Google Play rather than the flat rate subscription option used by Rdio. If you have any questions about your Vdio account, you can reach the support team via help@vdio.com.

Rdio announced layoffs last month as it looks to stay competitive in the music market against the likes of Spotify and Deezer. There has been some positive news for the company too, though: it expanded into 20 new territories a couple of weeks ago, and now offers a free plan alongside the paid subscription options.

In the time we spent with Vdio we found it to be very similar to Rdio: speedy, reliable, peppered with useful social discovery features, and compatible with any modern Web browser (no extra software required). The content was decent enough, but it would seem that Vdio didn’t attract enough users to be a viable proposition in 2014.