Pandora picks up failing Rdio for $75 million

Remember the last time you and your friends all gathered around and listened to Rdio together? No? Well, that’s because the plucky upstart company is filing for bankruptcy after failing to snag a winning percentage of the music streaming market.

There’s silver lining aplenty for this raincloud, however. Digital music streaming titan Pandora has scooped up Rdio’s technological and personnel assets for a cool $75 million. This looks like it’s going to be good news for Pandora fans everywhere, because Rdio let its users do a handful of things Pandora users still cannot. Streaming a specific album, for instance, is a capability that has long lingered outside of Pandora’s grasp due to copyright issues.

For a while there, Rdio was going head-to-head with leading music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora. They were an underdog song for quite some time, but 2015 showed them finally signing over the farm. Things looked bleak for Rdio, but after filing for bankruptcy, Pandora showed up with a wallet full of cash, ready to incorporate Rdio’s features into its own.

Changes like this can take quite a bit of time, however. Pandora isn’t slated for a major update to their service model until late 2016. The problem is that this particular marketplace is evolving at a rapid pace. Services like Spotify and Pandora are dominating, but other services like Google Play Music are also arising as competition. By the time late 2016 rolls around, will the changes Pandora brings to its service through the implementation of Rdio’s technology be enough to keep it in the game?

It’s an interesting competition to watch, but as consumers we are all part of this engagement. So what music streaming service do you use? I’m a Google Music fanatic all the way. Pandora drove me away with ads, but I’m not opposed to coming around if they start bringing a better user experience to their app. How about you? Where do you get your music and why do you prefer it to any competitors?