Rdio has launched a series of station-related upgrades. Central to these is “You FM,” a Pandora-like station which plays a listener’s favorite tracks, along with related ones for variety. Similiarly, new Friend FM stations give people a sample of their friends’ tastes.
Rdio is promising an “endless” variety of stations in general, based on seed criteria like artists, songs, and genres. To ensure that people discover new music the company is giving listeners with open-minded tastes high “adventurousness” scores in their taste profiles, and making it possible to fine-tune personalization.
The stations player has lastly been redesigned to support voting on tracks while also highlighting album art. The changes should affect both the web and mobile versions of Rdio, but in the latter category, only the iOS app has so far been updated. The app is a free download, but an Rdio subscription costs $5 for web-only access, or $10 per month for added mobile, Sonos, and Roku support. Various family bundles are also available.
