About.com Rating

Visit Their Website

It’s obvious that the music industry has experienced the biggest shift we’ve ever seen--from traditional and analogue consumption to digital and Internet media consumption.

For the past 10 to 12 years or so, people have enjoyed downloading music online and storing in on their hard drives. Now, with cloud-based music streaming services, anyone can enjoy unlimited music without needing to download it.

Rdio is one of those services that makes it all possible.

What Is Rdio?

Rdio is an on-demand, subscription-based music streaming service. It’s similar to what most of us are used to seeing with iTunes or Windows Media Player, except Rdio is much more web-integrated, allowing you to listen to millions of songs stored in the cloud. You never have to spend time waiting to download music with Rdio, because it’s all readily available for active subscribers.

Rdio Features

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the major features you get when signing up for a Rdio subscription.

Over 15 million songs: Rdio has an incredibly large selection of music, and it’s great that you don’t have to download each file one by one or pay for each individually.

No ads: There are not interruptions or pesky ads blocking your way, and you don’t have to risk getting viruses or poor sound quality when using Rdio.

Personalized suggestions: Rdio pays attention to what you’re listening to and makes suggestions on new music or other albums that suit your taste.

It’s a great way to discover new music and expand your collection.

Search and playlist creation: Simply enter the name of any piece of music in the search box and Rdio automatically finds it for you. You can search by song title, album, artist, playlist or people. Create and customize as many playlists as you like and modify them as desired.

Social integration: Rdio is crazy social, allowing you to create your own profile, follow other users, see what others listening to, enjoy their playlists, and share what you’re listening to on other sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Rdio Subscriptions

As you might have guessed, Rdio doesn’t exactly come for free. Everyone is eligible for a 7-day free trial upon first signing up for the service. After that, you’ll be asked to upgrade to one of the three subscription packages.

Web subscription: If you just want to listen to unlimited music from your desktop computer or laptop, the web subscription might be a good choice. It’s only $4.99 per month.

Unlimited subscription: With this option, you get everything included in the web subscription plus the option to listen from your mobile devices, like your smartphone or tablet. The Unlimited subscription is $9.99 per month.

Unlimited Family subscription: For families or couples that want to enjoy all of Rdio’s features, you can save money by going for the family option. You can get two unlimited subscriptions (accounts) to Rdio with the chance to save 20 percent on the second subscription for just $17.99 per month or get three Rdio subscriptions for $22.99.

Rdio Guide Review

I’ve been pretty pleased with Rdio in all aspects, and expect to keep using it well into the future. For someone that doesn’t care to actually own music on my hard drive, music streaming is a wonderful option. The best part is that you get instant access, and all music is of great quality. I’ve also really enjoyed searching for and listening to other users’ playlists, and syncing up my Rdio library to my iTunes library has been great for combining what I already have with new stuff I really like.

Every once in a while, I’ll search for an artist and discover that Rdio doesn’t have their music. Still, Rdio has an enormous selection and I’m more than happy to pay the small monthly fee for instant access to their massive library. Personally, Rdio has been a great option for me since Spotify is not available where I am.

Visit Their Website