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

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

#241

Post by Dylan16807 »

andrewingram wrote: post #233
barclay wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A couple of years ago Spotify rewrote their clients to use CEF Eh. And not to sound like a cranky old man, but that shit sucks. It's ridiculous that their "app" needs 20-30 seconds to boot on a modern computer. It's a damned music player. Plus, when the machine is under load, it skips like a 1993 disc player. And the damned thing crashes routinely. Pre-CEF I was terribly impressed by their mac client. It's been a p…

It takes roughly 2.5 seconds to load on my machine, not sure what's happening on yours that means it takes 20-30 seconds.

That's still 5-10x slower than it should be.

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

#242

Post by thirdsun »

andrewingram wrote: post #235
thirdsun wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, that doesn't sound appealing at all as a discovery tool - unless I know I like the curator's taste, I'm probably not interested in his recommendations. That's why the heavy rotation section in rdio that only showed popular music among your friends (which you should select carefully!) was so useful - if you had a circle of great tastemakers.

It's generated algorithmically based on your recent-ish listening habits combined with a bit of fairy dust, I believe they acquired a company that specialised in it. It's pretty good at recommending songs to me that are similar to what i've been listening to, along with a few curveballs that encourage me to branch out, or throwbacks to older habits.

Very likely EchoNest. Used in rdio as well.

And while these algorithms work up to a degree at some point it's not useful anymore - especially if your taste is very specific and not dependent on obvious factors like genre or mood (I know, Echonest takes a lot more properties into account).

These days I see what feels like the same recommendations everywhere. Rdio solved this problem with good old fashioned human curation - and in contrast to Apple Music it's based on humans I want to follow, not some show host or editor that has to appeal to large crowds.

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

#243

Post by austenallred »

pyre wrote: post #213
austenallred wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every $1,000 in music sold the artist gets average musician gets $23.40 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

This doesn't mean that the studios are leaving a big cut to Spotify, it just means that the artists aren't getting much.

The article explains that Spotify's cut would be tiny.

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

#244

Post by uptown »

KingMob wrote: post #38
uptown wrote: post #2

There's not enough listeners for the number of music services. If your service stumbles, it's easy to move onto something else, so you really only get one or no chances to convince your potential customers. My experience with Rdio was one of frustration. Their desktop player was buggy and frequently failed to play anything at all. When it did work, I found the consistency of the music catalog to be unreliable. One we…

Catalog consistency was probably a licensing issue and not technological, I should point out. Same reason movies just disappear from Netflix every so often.

It absolutely was a licensing issue. But it results in a horrible experience for the end user.

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

#245

Post by EwanToo »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #239
rtpg wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People don't get into fistfights over Vim vs. Emacs. It's just a community joke. Unfortunately, this can get out of hand, see systemd death threats. Hope people will learn to be nicer on the internet now that the general population is on it.

That's not a product rivalry, that's a deeper upset with how systemd is handling things. Nobody thinks vim is trying to take over the editor space.

But I would hope you'd still think that death threats over it are utterly ridiculous, and unacceptable?

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

#246

Post by saturdaysaint »

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…

And yet it's still more useful to me than Spotify, which summarily stopped syncing new music to my phone after a few months (and, no, uninstall/reinstall did nothing to remedy it).

Apple Music's interface can be wonky, but the search bar is going to be %90 of the interface of any music app for me, so I can deal - most of the time I search with Siri and don't even look at it. And the "For Me" tab full of incredible curated playlists in genres of my choosing has introduced me to far more music than Spotify ever did.

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

#247

Post by Grue3 »

This is what will happen to every single streaming service eventually. It's hard to believe that 10 years down the line Apple Music, or Spotify, or Google whatever-it's-called-now will still be a thing.

If you really like listening to music, make sure you either have it as physical media, or stored on your hard drive (yes, I still buy and rip CDs myself).

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

#248

Post by snarfy »

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!…

Tribalism is human nature. It's not rational. In a tribe, being rejected is pretty much a death sentence, so I can see why humans have a strong motivation to be in one. It turns irrational when that tribe is coke vs pepsi, xbox vs playstation, vim vs emacs, etc.

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

#249

Post by kyrre »

wobbleblob wrote: post #238
kyrre wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't this due to complex licensing issues? i created my original rdio account while living in London, and then when i moved to Norway i decided to upgrade my subscription, at which point my playlists became unplayable as a large portion of songs were suddenly marked as "unavailable" in my region

Spotify seems to have found a solution for these complex licensing issues. Netflix allows me to pay them money, but they have a different selection available depending on where I'm connecting from. Initially, Pandora gave the impression that they were working on it, but how long has it been, 10 years? They can go sit on the roof with a bunch of onions as far as I'm concerned.

yeah, that's a fair point i guess

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

#250

Post by 6stringmerc »

coldtea wrote: post #59
6stringmerc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As little as I actually count on the service, and have yet to update my files with tracks since about 2013, Radio Reddit is one of the few I know of that legitimately side-steps the licensing issue. It's more of a discovery service than streaming service, so to speak. Niche market. Heck, if ReverbNation or BandCamp wanted to get into the 'stand-alone, broadcast/streaming, exposure and small payment per play' market,…

> 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…

Fair points and I can see your perspective, but also think you're kind of too focused on the notion of streaming revenue as the goal for unsigned bands/musicians/artists. Even signed to a major label, the income is negligible.

However in other avenues, such as 'music review' and licensing for film/commercials, there's a genuine thirst for finding the "next big thing" and getting involved with the artist before the 'long tail' even gets started. My favorite example is Chvrches, which turned free publicity into a viable career. Yes, there are only a few at the top who have the quality and capability, but that's kind of the point of curation, review, and promotions teams - if they don't find something new, somebody else will.

Remember all that buzz around whichever indie/unknown group was featured in an Apple commercial? That's more what I'm talking about, because they probably made more from the commercial and initial sales bump than they ever will/would from streaming revenue, and that's just the nature of the business. Hot today, cold tomorrow, better make something new to stay in the game.

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