Rdio Offers 2 New Features for Canadian Users

By Justin Sarachik , Christian Post Reporter

November 26, 2011|11:22 am

Digital music provider, Rdio, has just announced two new features to its groundbreaking music service for Canadian users.

The first change is French-Language Localization. The new feature allows Rdio users to access the site in French on the Internet, BlackBerry, or iOS devices.

This is effective immediately except for Android users who will have it available shortly.

The next feature is Canadian Pricing. Canadian users were previously charged in U.S. dollars. The prices will be the same as before but it will be more convenient because funds don't need to be converted.

It's $4.99 CAD for unlimited web access and $9.99 CAD for unlimited web and mobile with offline access.

Rdio has four subscription features starting with Rdio Web at $4.99 a month and offers unlimited web streaming of millions of songs.

Next is Rdio Unlimited for $9.99 a month and adds unlimited mobile streaming to the feature as well as a sync and go anywhere feature.

The last two subscriptions are unlimited family plans. The first is for two people at $17.99 a month and the second for three people at $22.99 a month.

It follows the model of British company Spotify, which is continuing to create a buzz all over Europe with its almost two-year-old company.

Rdio each has a little less than 100,000 users but is confident that it will grow because of the success of Spotify which has 10 million users. Of those 10 million users, one million pay the subscription fee.

Record labels are said to like the idea of the new system as they see this as a way of not being robbed of money from illegal music piracy.

"It's not a shift to free," said an anonymous label executive who cannot comment publicly yet because all the details have not been worked out yet. "We're building a larger funnel and driving more consumers to a subscription service."

In the past decade more than 35,000 illegal music downloaders have been sued for piracy by record labels. These same labels have had to cut thousands of jobs and have watched sales plummet to around 50 percent of previous figures.