Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 266 posts

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#171

Post by tomclancy »

invisible wrote: post #162
rekoros wrote: post #151

I was one of Rdio's first employees (3rd) and have been a happy subscriber since Craig got billing to work. After FB employees got free Rdio, they gave Rdio employees free Rdio as well, but I kept paying—to retain the right to bitch. (I got a free account for my wife though.) My entire extended family have been paying for and swearing by Rdio for years. I was introduced to Erlang at Rdio (this shaped the future of my…

Speaking to the question you posed at the end: Having worked at Grooveshark I think Google Music is the obvious choice now that Rdio will soon be gone.

I had Google Music for 6 months and, while their music selection is great, their UI is horrendous.

For example if I'm scrolling through an artists albums, they would list every release of an album (European release, NA release, Japan release, extended version, radio friendly, non-radio friendly). Maybe that's nice for some? It was just a hassle for me.

Overall navigation through the app I found to be really, really bad.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#172

Post by [deleted] »

rekoros wrote: post #151

I was one of Rdio's first employees (3rd) and have been a happy subscriber since Craig got billing to work. After FB employees got free Rdio, they gave Rdio employees free Rdio as well, but I kept paying—to retain the right to bitch. (I got a free account for my wife though.) My entire extended family have been paying for and swearing by Rdio for years. I was introduced to Erlang at Rdio (this shaped the future of my…

[deleted]

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#173

Post by badmadrad »

I just checked out Youtube Music today and its pretty awesome and you are able to leverage all the great catalog of music uploaded to Youtube. I'm surprised more people are not using it/talking about it. I really do see this as a spotify killer if its gets some steam and some of the discovery features you get with spotify.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#174

Post by verelo »

This has been an interesting 5 years for this space.

I had Grooveshark, but they didn't have an iOS app, so when i switched from Android I went to Rdio.

When Spotify launched in Canada, I tried it, and quickly switched over simply because the app was not complete junk. The Rdio song offering was fine, just as good as Spotify as far as I could tell. The Rdio app, was terrible. 50% of the time it would "play" but no sound would come out, the other 50% it would sometimes work / sometimes just crash or lock up.

You cannot have a product that is half assed, when you are still trying to win the market, and even if you have won you still cant for very long.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#175

Post by slouch »

mbrock wrote: post #108
coldtea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, if ReverbNation or BandCamp wanted to get into the 'stand-alone, broadcast/streaming, exposure and small payment per play' market, they could have a distinct advantage in that their content sources are, predominately, unsigned and able to negotiate in good faith (in theory). Yeah, but also the very big disadvantage that nobody cares for those artists [1], even for the better ones among them. This kind of "lon…

Maybe nobody cares yet because nobody has made a sufficiently compelling alternative. Almost everyone I know has at least some bands they like that aren't one of the few acts at the top. Local bands, side projects, anti-establishment punk bands, whatever. My little working class town is a miniature hotbed for small bands. They don't all make weird punk or whatever, tons of them make music that would be really nice fo…

ReverbNation would need a lot of curation on top their rewards-for-uploads model to make it listenable. Unlimited skips wouldn't be enough for the early adopters to enjoy the stream.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#176

Post by repentsinner »

joefkelley wrote: post #93
threeseed wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best is subjective. Google Music is definitely a great music store. For those wanting a social music experience Spotify is the "best". For those wanting curated music and a digital radio experience Apple Music is the "best". For those wanting a hands off service Pandora is the "best".

The last two points are extremely debatable. I have used Google, Spotify, and Pandora, and in my experience, Google's hands-off auto-generated playlists are extremely high quality. They also have great radio/curated playlists via the Songza acquisition. Spotify is a clear winner for a social experience, but I think you're really underestimating Google on the other dimensions.

Coming from Rdio, I'm genuinely curious where you find the social experience in Spotify. Is it all in FB?

In Rdio I really enjoy the comments feature and how generally constructive it tends to be. In addition it's easy to find people with similar musical tastes in the list of recent listeners - I've followed people via this mechanism and found great music as a result. I don't see how to do the same in Spotify at all. Spotify shows me that 300k people listened to a band, with 18k new listeners today, but no individual link to any of them? And none of them can comment, post reviews, or link to music videos or trivia? Where's the user generated/curated content?

Granted I haven't used Spotify in a few years so it may just take me some time to find all of the things that are immediately at hand in Rdio in Spotify's (imo less friendly) UI.

RIP Rdio :(

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#177

Post by wodenokoto »

bsimpson wrote: post #130
caractacus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your people in the know are wrong. The labels own a very small part of e.g. Spotify - around 5% - and the rest is VC and the founders. Deezer's IPO documents were clear on where the ownership of that service lies.

Sadly the edit window has passed for that comment. Apologies for spreading old/erroneous information.

I read it more like, because the music startups are so dependent on the licenses they are practically owned by the music industry ( though not technically) which I thought was kinda insightful.

But I guess you meant litterally.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#178

Post by LargeCompanies »

ryanSrich wrote: post #29
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #9

that is really unfortunate, I much prefer Rdio's web interface to Spotify's and for all the years I've been a subscriber it's been rock solid, on the other hand I do think I am likely not the typical user (100% on desktop, mostly listens to full albums rather than random songs, a lot of classical music, etc.) When Rdio shuts down I am really not sure where I will be able to go for a comparable experience, Spotify for…

Apple music is not usable with any device. Just to name a few issues I've personally experienced: - Not being able to listen to music because itunes said I wasn't signed in. (of course I was and the only way to fix it was to restart my computer.) This error happens a few times per month. - Songs not playing and getting an alert error with some random code that results in searching countless threads online. This happe…

Apple Music's UI/UX is not only terrible it can prove deadly if used while driving. I know we shouldn't be messing with our music apps while driving but a good majority does.

Using Siri and Apple Music for the most part works like a charm and is helpful in terms of keeping one safe while driving/enjoying their music subscription app.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#179

Post by epa »

mbesto wrote: post #159
rekoros wrote: post #151

I was one of Rdio's first employees (3rd) and have been a happy subscriber since Craig got billing to work. After FB employees got free Rdio, they gave Rdio employees free Rdio as well, but I kept paying—to retain the right to bitch. (I got a free account for my wife though.) My entire extended family have been paying for and swearing by Rdio for years. I was introduced to Erlang at Rdio (this shaped the future of my…

> "Are we really going to start using Spotify after so many years of hating on it?" —our 15-year-old. Genuinely curious here - why are so many techies desperately passionate (both positive and negative) about choice of unseemly unnecessary tech products? I feel like there is this peculiar subculture of tech-minded folk who defend at odds their tech choices. "Slack is the best" "Hell no, IRC has been around for years!…

The tech generation grew up in a 'free' culture of internet: illegal downloads, open source, pro bono collaboration. Paying for something that is equally equivalent to something that was free for decades usually is a tough sell. This doesnt apply to all people.

Re: Pandora to Buy Rdio Assets for $75M, Rdio Files Ch.11, Will Shutter Service

#180

Post by slouch »

hobo_mark wrote: post #139

Ctrl+F Soundcloud.. crickets I once made a chrome extension to add global keyboard shortcuts to Soundcloud and now that is literally all I listen to all day (I know, artists aren't getting a penny from me and that is bad, especially for small indies, I would buy much more music off bandcamp if the ux wasn't so atrocious). My point is, surely I'm not the only one here using SC exclusively? Just curious.

Just yesterday, I tried to find an album that Scott Melker had uploaded to SoundCloud. It's gone, and he posted this announcement https://soundcloud.com/scottmelker/please-listen-a-message-o...

So, SoundCloud can't present me with the discography of Black Sabbath, and a smaller artist I enjoy can't even keep his music on the service.

Post reply on HN