My music discovery/listening/acquisition/sharing regimen is in a state of, well… It’s not in flux; that’s way too negative. In many ways, things are better than they’ve ever been. No, thanks to technological advances, how I do those things is changing.
I try to find music I’m interested in, new or old, in a variety of places. I usually buy what I want to have permanent access to. That’s been the pattern almost from the beginning, starting with 45s, then vinyl albums followed by CDs. Digital music ended up on series of ever-smaller and yet more spacious ipods.
The iTunes Music Store started a transition to downloading music, with the vendors expanded to include emusic.com, Amazon, among others. Bye-bye, Tower Records!
Lala.com seemed almost perfect for finding and serendipitously discovering new music. Most importantly, Lala evolved into a great place to meet people who shared an interest in my favorite spot on the long tail. Lala added community to the music mix.
Communities have sprouted on a variety of other services (with varying degrees of success), including emusic.com, mog.com and, now, Rdio. There’s also Apple’s Ping. The thing about these services is they’re designed principally to sell music, or eyeballs. They’re about making money selling a product. That’s where their development time goes.
Maybe providing social networking tools (necessary to facilitate growth and maintenance of communities) costs these services more than it creates in additional revenue. Not sure. Lala seemed to get the balance right, until Apple came along and ruined it. Perhaps the Lala model was unprofitable or unsustainable, but Ping represents a gigantic step backwards.
Some aspects of Rdio are particularly galling. For example, let’s say you create a playlist containing a few songs. Later someone leaves a “review” on the playlist (a comment or question). You might not discover their review until weeks later because there’s no notification that the review was posted. Without notifications, opportunities for conversation (and community) are lost.
There are also serious problems with the Rdio user interface. Suppose you search for a song entitled, “Solar” (a great Miles Davis composition that’s been covered hundreds of times). Rdio informs you there are almost 2400 such songs, but the first 22 it lists have some other title. Most don’t even have “solar” in the title. More song titles contain “solaris” than “solar.” Several are merely songs by a band whose name contains “solaris.” Bug or feature?
I can’t speak about their numbers and have no idea how Rdio’s business model is working, but even with fewer useful features, the Rdio community seems even stronger than Lala at this point (maybe that’s because memories of lala are fading). Rdio remains useful despite its flaws because the competition is worse, it has a growing catalog, and it has a vibrant and growing community. But there’s something else…
One. More. Thing.
Late last year I hooked up an Apple TV to my audio receiver and television. That allowed me to access and play my entire digital music library through the stereo for the first time. Shortly thereafter, Apple updated its operating systems to include Airplay which permits music and video streaming from iPhones and iPads to the Apple TV. With the introduction of Airplay, I could stream Rdio from the iPhone to my stereo1.
For me, major change. I can listen to music I don’t own through a great sound system. The iPhone version lets me carry Rdio tracks with me on my long winter walks. Now I find myself questioning whether I need to buy and download a new song or album rather than just use the subscription model.
Rdio is good. Rdio + Apple TV + an iPhone with synced Rdio music: much better! All that and community too? Priceless!
BTW, there’s a great template for Rdio: just copy more of what Lala was doing!
1 AirPlay streaming also works with other music service apps, including Pandora, MOG, and Last.fm.
