Why Rdio died
theverge.com
theverge.com
A. Mistake of having a business that makes sense? Are you kidding me?
B. Spotify and Pandora are heading straight towards the same fate as Rdio.
Netflix is on fire right now with their original series.
Spotify producing some hit records could change the equation. They already have some great content in the Spotify Sessions series.
They offer some of the biggest distribution channels available, have deep pockets, and have a VERY vested interest in killing the status quo because of the freedom it will give them for using music and promoting artists in new ways.
That is definitely one industry that needs to have more competition.
He'd call Doug Morris (ex-Universal, ex-Warner, ex-Sony) to get him to come onboard as a CEO of that label, but in Morris' view a label that could not cut upfront checks to young artists would not stay in business for long.
Any promising artists would then be schmoozed and seduced by the labels who can cut advance checks and offer real money in the pocket today instead of abstract fairer revenue split down the road. Any existing top artists already have some label relationship that is hard to get out of. What you're left with is a bunch of nobodies, kinda like the MP3.com back in the days.
Especially in this case: the business isn’t in a high-margin niche; it has large direct competitors like Spotify, Apple, Google.
When Rdio is gone there's going to be a huge hole in my life that needs filled with good design and experience browsing my music. iTunes is a shitshow. Spotify is ugly. Pandora is radio. It's all rubbish.
The Winamp revival cannot come soon enough.
They also have a decent "blogged 50" playlist which is recent/modern music.
Other than that, I mostly listen to kexp.org for a good mix of music. Sometimes for radio you can't beat the radio.
The on-demand services are more like a replacement for album/track purchases but I've found that bookmarking 10 or 20 favorite Shoutcast stations in anything from Winamp to VLC to any other desktop or mobile app that supports streaming mp3 is like having the best, human-programmed radio dial ever.
Even back in the early 2000's when I was stuck on 128k/sec cellular data I would hook my Treo up to the car stereo and stream 96kbps music when everyone else was paying for XM. Then with the move to third-gen data networks I got the bump to 800k/sec and streaming much nicer 128k-192k stuff was simple. Sound didn't beat a CD but it was better than satellite radio's compressed streams a lot of the time.
Even today, I usually listen to KEXP's stream or Devil's Night Radio or something from SomaFM before dicking around on Spotify or Youtube. There's just something to be said for finding stations that are programmed and run by people with a knowledge and love of music that you also may enjoy. Noticing themes or trends in strings of songs always puts a smile on my face in a way that Pandora or Spotify just never will.
Although I am an "edge case," this really punishes the hobbyist.
I'm at my wit's end. I liked the subscription service but now I've got to cancel and go to Apple Music.
Having to call support and beg once the 4-device limit and explain the rational (OCD and tweaking devices to get them "just right") is just "ugh."
The Apple iTunes PC/Mac 5-devices (de-auth any time from that device an unlimited number of times) with a 1-time yearly self device-reset is more reasonable.
Which platform? I've heard this criticism before but I don't understand it.
I use the service on Android, OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu...and while it may not be 100% beautiful throughout, I think it manages to balance decent aesthetics with decent UX better than most mainstream apps out there.
I want to view my tracs as they are in my folder. The only app I've found that can manage this is "Folder Player" but I have the feeling it's huge.
That's one reason I never really took to iTunes. I just keep my music on my computer (and occasionally on my phone) in folders with the structure Music\Artist\Album\(tracks). Then when I want to play something, I can either sort albums or artists or I can just point it at the folder I want it to read so it only shows what's in that folder (good for folders that I might make with various tracks from multiple albums).
Basically I'm a throwback and I just want everything to be Winamp I think.
I feel with you. It Really Whips the Llama's Ass.
Is this what you want? http://spotiamb.com/
Now I'm looking around to see if it would be possible to import the contents of that CSV into another service. It looks like Spotify has an API to add a track to a user: https://developer.spotify.com/web-api/save-tracks-user/
And there's a third-party API some folks cooked up for Google's service: http://unofficial-google-music-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest...
Might have to play with them this weekend.
- Buggy desktop app (used Flash player and would eat 100% CPU)
- Buggy mobile app [1]
- Restricted library (lots of tracks marked as "not available in your country", which defeats the point of having an online streaming service).
It's enough to turn me off of cloud-based music services entirely, honestly. I'm only considering possibly ever subscribing to Apple Music because they let you upload tracks you own that they don't have. I hear Google Music does the same thing? Or maybe I'll finally set up that Plex server...
But as much I wanted to love Rdio, the app (Android in particular) had many bugs that would cause it to crash or lock up, and some that would send my network connection off into the weeds, requiring (at least) an airplane-mode reset.
And despite the claims of "elegant, groundbreaking", what music app has Search on slide-out besides Rdio? With results that appear in a 1/3-size screen?
Time to figure out how to get my playlists over to Rhapsody, the Little Music Service That Could.
Apart from that, I love the service, and I'm sad to see it go!
Also helped that my new living room receiver had Spotify integration but not Rdio.
Neither Google or Apple has to make money from their service - whereas Spotify must make money. It makes me wonder why Spotify hasn't just gone after artists directly, because that's the only way I see them making money long term.
That's partially what Tidal tried to do but it's not going very well for them either, unfortunately.
For me the killer feature would be a sophisticated implementation of "if you like this song, here are some you may also like". Sophisticated, because the music I like is usually an amalgam of multiple styles, for example jazz-funk-soul. The existing software is way too simplistic right now:
1.it usually classifies music in exclusive styles (soul or jazz, but not both),
2. the recommendations that come up are usually the well known artists, and I am more interested in less known ones (because I am familiar with all the big names already).