Rdio, the streaming music service started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, is arriving in its fourth market today: Germany. Already available in the U.S., Canada and Brazil, the company says it will be offering a 7-day free trial to the 82+ million German residents who want to give it a shot.
Afterwards, access to Rdio’s catalog of over 12 million songs will be restricted to paying users only. The web-only option will be offered for 4.99 EUR, and the web+mobile option will be 9.99 EUR, monthly.
The company had been more focused on product and feature set than global expansion over the past year, with added options like digital gift cards, new payment plans, a new iPad app, Facebook Open Graph integration, and a partnership with Kobo’s e-reader. Rdio now says that it plans to continue its international expansion efforts, but isn’t giving the names of countries or expected ETA’s at this time.
For those of you (Germans) who are unfamiliar with Rdio, its main differentiating feature is that it allows you to build an online music collection by matching your current iTunes catalog to Rdio’s collection, similar to how iTunes Match works. You can also browse Rdio’s tracks, build playlists, listen to artist and label radio stations, and share music with friends on Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm.
Rdio is the ground-breaking digital music service that is reinventing the way people discover, listen to, and share music. With on-demand access to over 12 million songs, Rdio connects people with music and makes it easy to search for and instantly play any song, album, artist or playlist without ever hearing a single ad. Discover what friends, people with similar tastes, recording artists and more are listening to in real-time and share across Twitter and Facebook. Build a digital...
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