I first heard of Rdio (pronounced r-dee-o, not Radio lol) it was at a Blackberry Appworld event back on June 16th. I didn’t really cover it since their trail period in my opinion is way too short, being all 3 days. But they recently released an Android app as well and I decided to sign up and use it for that. Yep it was still only 3 days, but at least this time I had enough free time to really check it out, especially since I’m in the middle of my 30 day challenge series.
Signing up for Rdio is simple enough, and I really like the concept of the service. I’d like to call it Pandora with a social element. You see you can follow other people, invite friends to join and then get music recommendation based upon what your friends are listening to. Great concept I thought, but sorry to say, that doesn’t translate to the mobile app for Android that well. You see for the Android app I’m limited to just Collection (mines) and Playlists (ones I’ve created). I had a quick look back at the Blackberry app just for reference and it really shines on Blackberry. This is actually surprising as normally Android and iPhone apps are better featured than Blackberry ones.
On the Blackberry app you can see Your Queue, Recently Played, and Recently Added. You can also see the Heavy Rotation, Recently Added, and Playlists of those in your network. This mirrors what you can do from the main website as well. I’m actually glad I picked up my Blackberry again as I was ready to now give Rdio good marks based on their Android app. But Rdio is a really great service that shines as least for the Blackberry.
The one thing I can’t get down with on Rdio is the pricing structure. You see after the 3 day trial, unlike a Pandora just to use their main website on a computer you have to pay $5.00 a month. Now if you want to use their mobile app and the main website you have to $10.00 a month. Seems not like a really good choice when you can get Pandora, Last.FM, and even Slacker from the website for free. Now if the website was free, but you had to pay $5.00 a month to be able to use the mobile app with it, I could work with that, but definitely not just the main site for a price.
If Rdio can change up their fee structure I could fully recommend their service. But see for yourself, sign up and check out he 3 day trial (if you can get a invite). Really wish that trial wasn’t just 3 days, a week would be better. Check it out at www.rdio.com
