Rdio

The prettiest streaming service that ever lost

Shut down
19902026

Rdio was the streaming service from Skype's founders, launched in the US in August 2010, a year before Spotify arrived there. Critically adored for its design and social features, it never matched Spotify's scale, filed for bankruptcy in November 2015, and shut down on 22 December after Pandora bought the remains for $75 million.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2010
  2. 3 August 2010 Launch
    Rdio launches in the US

    Subscription streaming with social discovery, pre-Spotify US.

  3. 2011
  4. 14 July 2011 Decline
    Spotify reaches the US

    The better-funded rival with a free tier changes the race.

  5. 2013
  6. 2013 Feature
    Vevo deal and video push

    Rdio experiments beyond music as growth stalls.

  7. 2015
  8. 16 November 2015 Legal
    Chapter 11 bankruptcy

    Pandora agrees to buy technology and team for $75 million.

  9. 22 December 2015 Shutdown
    Rdio shuts down

    Subscribers get a farewell; the brand is retired.

The site through time

Browse rdio.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Rdio Inc. 2010–2015 Founded Founded by the Skype/Kazaa duo; assets to Pandora in bankruptcy

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Rdio filed for bankruptcy on 16 November 2015; Pandora bought its technology and team for $75 million, and the service went dark on 22 December 2015.

Our analysis: Rdio reached the US before Spotify with a better-designed product, and lost anyway: Spotify's free tier and marketing muscle set a price Rdio's subscriptions could not fight, and licensing costs did the rest.

History [edit]

First and best-dressed

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, having already upended file sharing with Kazaa and telephony with Skype, aimed at music next. Rdio launched in the US in August 2010, beating Spotify to the American market by almost a year, with a clean white interface widely considered the best-looking product in streaming and social features (following friends, seeing their heavy rotation) that Spotify would later copy.

What it never had was money to burn. Spotify arrived in 2011 with a free ad-supported tier, label relationships and a war chest; Rdio's free offering came late and limited. The design faithful stayed, everyone else subscribed where their friends were.

Bankruptcy by Christmas

By 2015 Rdio had cycled CEOs, cut staff and burned through its funding. On 16 November 2015 it filed for Chapter 11 in a pre-arranged deal: Pandora took the technology and about a hundred employees for $75 million; the service itself was not part of the sale. Rdio streamed its last song on 22 December 2015. Its alumni and its design DNA scattered across the industry, visible for years in every streaming app that finally caught up to how Rdio looked in 2010.

Similar projects

Winamp It really whips the llama's ass 1997–2013 RealPlayer Buffering… buffering… 1995–now Google Play Music Your music locker, repossessed 2011–2020 Grooveshark All the music, none of the licences 2007–2015

Sources [edit]

  1. Rdio Shut-Down Date Revealed: December 22 Variety 15 December 2015 [archived]
  2. Pandora Media Form 8-K: Rdio asset acquisition U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 16 November 2015

Last verified: 11 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).