This week Pandora is launching its on-demand music service with features like what other subscription services including Google Play Music and Spotify offer. Before now Pandora has primarily served streaming radio stations based on artists and tracks. Pandora Premium opens the service’s catalog of music up to on-demand access for a monthly fee.
Popular music streaming service Rdio is today announcing an expansion of its support for connected speaker systems and smart TVs, including Google’s new Google Cast for Audio platform introduced earlier this year.
In addition to supporting speakers that integrate Google’s Cast for audio platform, the music service is now available on Harman/Kardon, Denon, and the DTS Play-Fi Whole-Home Wireless ecosystem featuring leading brands such as Definitive Technology, Phorus, Polk Audio and Wren. The company also noted that it’s now available on Samsung smart TVs and arriving soon on smart TVs from LG and Hisense.
Previously Rdio was only available on Sonos speakers and setup boxes like the Apple TV and Google Chromecast.
Rdio is available free with ads or as an ad-free service for $9.99/month unlimited or on certain devices for $3.99/month with a limited number of on demand songs per day.
Rdio is today adding live streams of 460 traditional AM/FM radio stations, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The rollout, which starts Wednesday, includes 460 stations owned and operated by stakeholder Atlanta-based Cumulus Media Inc [including] long-running stations such as Cumulus’ KLOS-FM (95.5) in Los Angeles and KFOG-FM (104.5) in San Francisco, along with talk radio and sports outlets …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q0yZomXuSw
Google today announced Google Cast for audio, which the company says takes advantage of Chromecast tech to send audio to third-party hardware like speakers, A/V receivers, and sound bars. The feature will allow users to tap a “cast” button from within music and radio apps on Android, iOS and the web to stream audio to Google Cast enabled speakers.
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Frustrations over delays in launching YouTube’s long-awaited subscription-based music service are the reason the company has just lost its second head of music in less than a year, reports the WSJ.
Chris LaRosa, YouTube’s product manager in charge of music, will be leaving Google this Friday to join a startup. A YouTube spokesman confirmed LaRosa’s departure but didn’t say which startup LaRosa would be joining.
We’ve been hearing rumors about YouTube’s plans to launch the service since last October – the rumors then suggesting it would launch that year. Then it was going to be the first quarter this year. And then the second quarter – which just ended, still with no sign of the service nearing launch …
Two Android music apps have received small but useful updates. Google Play Music now allows you to edit the name and description of your playlists, and to share them with others, you can now do this from within the app rather than having to login to the website. You can also pin subscribed playlists and dismiss items from Listen Now, and the Thumbs Up playlist is sorted by recency.
Rdio, meantime, gets gapless playback – a feature many had requested for live concerts, classical music and comedy shows. Some UI improvements have been made along the way.
Both Google Play Music and Rdio are free downloads from Google Play.
With Apple having just acquired Beats Electronics, Amazon is apparently preparing to launch its own streaming music service. According to a new report out of BuzzFeed, Amazon has just signed deals with two of the three major labels. Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have both signed on, while Universal Music is still pondering the deal.
We’ve been hearing rumors of a YouTube streaming music service for what feels like forever, but according to a report out of the New York Times, the service has hit yet another snag. A report last month claimed that the service was delayed because YouTube and Google were approaching it with a “get it right” attitude and wanted to make the first version of the product as good as its competitors like Spotify and Rdio. This report, however, claims that YouTube has run into licensing troubles with independent music labels.
The Chromecast homescreen could in future emulate the MyCastScreen app
Reddit user asjmcguire has spotted code in a recent Chromecast update suggesting that the standby screen which currently displays only a clock and images chosen by Google could in future be rather more useful.
The code appears to allow for future support of weather and a slideshow of user-defined photos. If Google does indeed implement this, we can see the possibility of expanding it into a complete personalized dashboard, with information pulled from your Google Calendar and Google Now feed, and perhaps user-selected news sources. Come down in the morning, switch on your TV and see at-a-glance all the info you might want to start your day …
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Last October, Billboard reported that YouTube was planning to launch a music streaming service in late 2013 or early 2014. This evening, however, Billboard has published another report claiming that YouTube’s music streaming platform has been delayed until the second quarter of this year or beyond. According to the report, which cites “an executive briefed on YouTube’s plans”, YouTube is approaching this service with a “get it right” attitude.
The company wants to launch the first version of the service in an incredibly polished form that will help it stand out against competitors like Spotify and Rdio, which have been around for a while and have had several iterations of improvements. “They feel that there’s just too much scrutiny of this product, and that they need to get it right out of the gate,” said a senior label executive speaking to Billboard. This, of course, contradicts the strategy of YouTube’s parent company, Google, which launches services left and right in beta form, many of which get shut down relatively quickly.
Just weeks after the device became available in the UK (among others), Google has already started rolling out more UK-centric channels to the Chromecast. Joining the BBC iPlayer app, BT Sport has just announced that it too is planning to add Chromecast support for its channels in the coming weeks, as well.
As you would expect, you’ll have to be a BT customer in order to access the sports coverage. BT Sport is one of the largest sports providers in the UK. It has exclusive live TV rights to the English Premier League, in addition to owning the UK ESPN channels and broadcasting a plethora of other sports.
There’s no official release date for the BT Sport rollout on the Chromecast, but it is certainly great to see Google working so diligently to bring UK content to the Chromecast. This news comes just days after Google also added Vudu, Crackle, and Rdio support to the Chromecast. The open SDK is certainly paying off.
Adding to the catalog of Chromecast-supported content, Rdio and Crackle are both adding the ability to play more content from your smartphone, tablet, or browser to your TV today.
Crackle has refreshed its Android and iOS apps with support for Chromecast streaming. The Sony-backed content provider serves up a number of movies and TV shows for free including comedian Jerry Seinfield’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” original.
Video streaming service Vudu has also added Chromecast support in the latest versions of its Android and iOS apps. The Walmart-owned service includes HD movies and TV shows with no subscription.
Rdio announcement includes support for music streaming from its Rdio app to your TV for Google Chromecast users. That means users can control music from the Android or iOS app as it plays through the TV with the Chrome HDMI streaming stick. Rdio users can also stream to Chromecast-connected TVs with Google’s Chrome web browser.
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