Community Expresses Concerns About Duboce/Valencia Fire’s Causes, Victims

Residents of the Duboce-Valencia neighborhood met Thursday evening to rally donations for victims, connect with city officials and figure out any necessary next steps. On…

Slacker Radio Announces On Demand Service

In an environment of three types of digital music listeners, complete with dilemmas, Slacker Radio is “trying to make a quirky music festival with all…

Want To Hear Booker T. Jones’ New Album Before Its May 10 Release? Here You Go

Holy crap – social music service Rdio got an exclusive release, and the entire album can be streamed here, even if you aren’t an Rdio…

Rdio Partners With The Echo Nest In Time For Music Hack Day SF

The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform powering smarter music apps across the web and devices, announced a partnership with Rdio today. Together, the two…

SWcast Shutdown Exposes Six Years Of Deception

When is a service not a service? When it collects money from subscribers, supposedly for one purpose, then uses it for another. That’s what’s reportedly…

Google In Talks With Spotify, Needs To STFU And Use Inside Voice

If you can’t build it but have the money to license it, buy the company that already built it and has a lot of users….

Digital Music Dilemma: Fickle Bitch In SF Wants It Now

Have a digital music dilemma? Corey will solve it for you, just ask her at corey@sfappeal.com Dear Corey, I run for a significant amount of…

Justin Sinkovich On Epitonic’s Relaunch, A New Climate, And Playlists

The music business has never been more alive. A burgeoning industry of digital music is beginning to adapt to consumers in a climate more amenable…

We Ask Grooveshark What Having Their App Dumped By Google Means To Them

News about cloud based music streaming service Grooveshark broke late Wednesday and continued into the morning – Google pulled the Grooveshark smartphone application from the…

MOG, Sonos, And Free Trial Wars

Customers of Sonos Multi-Room Music System in the US will soon have access to bay area on demand music service MOG’s entire catalog. Sonos streams…

Digital Music Roundup: JamBase Innovates, Facebook Likes Ads

Live Music Gets Smart Earlier this week San Francisco based JamBase released their iPhone App V2, creating an “instant mobile connection between you and live…

“Regrettable” Or Great?: MTV’s Digital Music Awards Announcement

Yesterday, SF Weekly put out a headline that caught my eye. Apparently, MTV “Regrettably” announced new digital music awards, the OMAs. I was interested. Why,…

Digital Music Roundup: DAR.fm, Rdio On Roku, Sub Pop Joins Fight To Save KUSF

TiVo On The Radio Depending on when you were born, you probably remember taping the radio to hear certain talk, interviews, music, band debuts or…

The Three Types Of Digital Music Service Subscribers

Paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction, technology streamlines habits so as to turn an otherwise time consuming process into a simplified moment of…

Digital Music Roundup: Guitar Hero, Sonos + Droid, SF Musicians On The Verge

Guitar Hero Pays Tribute To Rock Stardom By Breaking Up Activision confirmed the end of Guitar Hero, forcing fake plastic guitars and aspiring rock stars…

Digital Music Roundup: Foursquare For Music, Spotify For…?, SXSW

OMG! First-Ever GeoLocation & Music Smartphone Application The marriage of geolocation and music seems like a no-brainer to me, so I’ve toyed with it in…

Digital Music Roundup: HD Radio Music Tagging, Spotify’s Weird Prediction, Record Label Antitrust Case Continues

HD Radio Lets You Tag Music, Store Song Metadata In Your Car Yes, that’s Radio with an ‘A’ – as in ham. RadioMagOnline reported from…

More Details, What New Artists You’ll Hear With The Rdio/Merlin Deal

San Francisco startup music streaming service Rdio recently announced that they have finally started to ingest content from the world’s largest independent labels, giving Rdio…

Big Music Tech News: Rdio Partners With Merlin, Sonos

Local music startup Rdio announced a deal with both indie music consortium Merlin and home music system manufacturer Sonos which expands their reach across fans…

Doctor Popular On Instagram, iPhone Apps, And Charging For Content

No news is supposedly good news, and so is very little news. Like most industries, the music industry typically quiets down between Christmas Eve and…

Digital Music Roundup: Pandora’s Apple, RootMusic’s Giving Tree, SoundHound’s Whuffie

Apple, Pandora Named In New Privacy Suit Apple, Pandora, The Weather Channel, and five other major iPhone application makers are the defendants in a Federal…

SF Digital Music Roundup, SXSW Edition: Swag Relief, Band Announcements, SF Embassy

confirmed for South By Southwest 2011; Filmed at SF Conservatory of Music; New album due out early 2011 SWAG Bag Relief 2011 Those heavy friggin’…

SF Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Billboard’s Sponsored Charts, Chrome App Wars, Subpoenaed Facebook Pages

Spotify Wants You Spotify’s US launch may be delayed, date unknown – but it won’t be long, they say. Delays certainly aren’t stopping the versatile…

Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Follow-Ups, The Cost Of Spotify, SoundCloud Record Button, Ontario Vs. Ticketmaster

SF Music Tech: Followups I have slowly been going through my live updated notes from yesterday’s seventh SF Music Tech Summit. Follow-ups are posted as…

Videos, Panel Summaries, Follow-ups: SF Music Tech Summit

As mentioned in last week’s roundup, the seventh San Francisco Music Tech Summit is today at Hotel Kabuki, from 9am-6pm, followed by a traditional schmoozer…

SF Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Free Rdio Subscriptions, SF Music Tech Summit, More On Jelli

Party! Eventbrite Presenting Root Music’s Launch Party San Francisco based music startup Root Music gives thousands of artists and their teams all over the globe…

SF Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Kanye On iTunes, EMI Goes After The EFF, She Uses Jelli

SF Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Kanye On iTunes, EMI Goes After The EFF, She Uses Jelli

Same Exact Kanye Album Hits #1 And #2 In iTunes Music Store The same Kanye West album is currently sitting at #1 and #2 on…

What’s Up With Women In The Music Industry?

This week Paul Resnikoff at Digital Music News reported on the “Stunning Absence” of powerful women in the music industry. What he didn’t say was…

SF Digital Music And Music Tech Roundup: Rdio, Ticketfly, Storenvy

Since I consider SF to be the hub of digital music, why not do a weekly roundup? Got a tip? Feed me. Corey@sfappeal.com iTunes Announces…

Now You Can Buy Beatles Songs On iTunes, And Why You Should Care

As you know if you have access to the internet, three years after the Apple Corps – Apple Inc dispute was resolved, Apple Inc announced…

Digital Music Cloud Challenge: Rdio on The Road

Music and travel are important to me in equal measure. As an experienced lover of road trips, and a mix tape junkie, I sought to…

They’re Real, And They’re Rich: The Social Network

Great storytelling is an art. David Fincher’s new film The Social Network tells a story we’ve already seen, heard, and used. Everything about it is…

From 7-11 To Amoeba: Future Tripping On Apple’s Ping

When Apple purchased LaLa, we briefly examined the history of digital music prior to their announcement. In an effort to really understand iTunes’ new Ping,…

Ticketmaster Just Can’t Get Social Media Right

It sucks to work on weekends, but most of us do it. Especially those who have the words “social” or “media” “community” and “service” somehow…

Live Nation Chair, Ticketmaster CEO, And Fun Guy Irving Azoff Joins Twitter

Yesterday we looked at the role of twitter in solving problems for Ticktmaster‘s recent “glitch” for Guided By Voices fans in San Francisco. We couldn’t…

Twitter Solves Ticketmaster Woes In 20 Minutes (This Time)

Buying pre-sale tickets online is pretty self-explanatory: a password’s provided as a benefit to a preferred group (superfans, for example), to allow them to buy…

Board Of Equalization Chair: SF’s Bar Culture Generates Millions, Needs To “Stay Vibrant”

Friday at SoMa’s best little hidden cafe Radius, the California Music and Culture Association (CMAC) hosted an “insider lunch” offering venue owners and operators, industry…

Want To Get Your Music On TV, Film, Games? Local Conference Has Tips

Flux Summit, SF’s only free conference designed for Bay Area hip hop and electronic labels & artists, convened once again last night at Pyramind in…

“We’re not trying to get into an Apple commercial”: Hot Fog

The Bay Area’s been known as a hotbed of genre bending underground music for decades. Recently it’s been hard to ignore our contributions to underground…

We Have Your Invite To Use rdio, SF’s Newest Streaming Music Service

We Have Your Invite To Use rdio, SF’s Newest Streaming Music Service

While this may not shock you, San Francisco is a hub for digital music innovation. Back In December 2009 we highlighted 2 of SF’s most passionate digital music innovators, Marisol Segal (Executive Director Partnerships & Business Development, rdio) & Todd Berman (VP Engineering, rdio). And last night while (if?) you slept, wondering what you would do now that lala is gone – the antidote for your woes launched in San Francisco.

Good morning, rdio!

From Skype & Kazaa founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, comes a giant new cloud based streaming catalog of music, old & new, major & indie, called rdio. In addition to streaming, rdio enables listeners to download the DRM free mp3s. Share them. Share playlists. Export them. Take them with you.

Music played by your friends shows up in a feed to help you discover new music while streaming the hell out of your own collection, or anything from the expansive catalog available through rdio, fully licensed from both major and indie labels.

We have to wonder: How the hell did rdio launch so quietly without a
single leak?! We think it’s because
rdio picked their initial beta testers strategically. Maybe rdio
learned from the mistakes of others: there’s no need to be “cool”
during your initial launch – especially when you launch a music
product. Cool is a fad…and a good music product must transcend the
whims of a fairweather community to honor the timeless product it
sells. While fads exist in both tech product launches and music,
(called “hits” of course) the art itself is not a fad and deserves the
utmost respect. Big ups to SF’s own rdio for recognizing the need for
dignity in launch, showing respect for the craft it sells and the
engineers who build it.

Most importantly, rdio is clean & focused: using it is easy and fun.  And it works. I haven’t had a single skip in my tracks. Also notable is the fidelity:  rdio sounds better than lala. As an early beta tester (before the day lala’s music died) I did a comparison and listened to the same song in both platforms – the fidelity is noticeably better on rdio. (If you are a tester, let us know what you think…)

Here’s a glimpse of the dashboard feed, informing me of my friend’s activity and inspiring me to continue adding albums to my collection.

When i do that, I can play them using the desktop player or just login to rdio.com. There’s also an iPhone app in early phases.

my rdio dashboard

To encourage a cliche, We’d love to see what you are listening to and since LaLa went the way of the Dodo  – and rdio is still in private beta – you’ll need an invitation to join.

We’re giving 3 invites to the first 3 SF Appeal readers best three comments (in the opinion of the writer) from SF Appeal readers  telling us why you want to use rdio. Not your thesis, just say why – because these invites are valuable!

UPDATE: I will announce winners as a comment at the end of the day today