14 DAY TRIAL // Music streaming is becoming increasingly popular at least with entrepreneurs and in some cases with the public as well. It's still as unprofitable and risky as ever but that doesn't seem to faze anyone. Spurred by Spotify's success, in terms of users not actual revenue, a number of music streaming services have popped up lately and the latest to join the party is a new project from well-known entrepreneurs and investors Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, originally titled Rdio, set to make its debut in the US early next year.
The two have launched a series of very well-known, if not always successful, ventures starting with the infamous Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing service. They went on to create the very popular VoIP service Skype, which they then sold to eBay for quite a bit of money though things are far from settled on that front. Their next startup, the web video service Joost, proved to be less successful and has pretty much closed down shop at this point.
They're as determined as ever though and are now trying their luck in the music streaming business with Rdio, a startup funded by their venture capital fund Atomico Ventures with which they are very involved. Despite a resurgence of sorts, music streaming is still far from a proved business. Spotify has been seeing a lot of hype and enjoys a growing following in the UK and especially in Sweden but financially it still has a lot of work to do and has been pushing hard to get revenues up. In the US Pandora is doing alright and is on track to become profitable this year but this comes after years of struggling.
There aren't many details on the upcoming Rdio but it will apparently be a subscription-based service and with a music sales component and will be available for PCs as well as mobile phones. The plan is to launch it sometime early next year, though by that time Spotify may also be available in the US. The company is said to be in talks with the major music labels though there haven't been any official deals yet.