Spotify to challenge Pandora with Spotify Radio

Spotify already has proven itself a formidable competitor for Rdio, and the all-you-can-stream music service even matches up against iTunes with a subscription model versus iTunes' track-at-a-time sales approach. Now it's aiming the crosshairs at suggestion engine Pandora with a revamp of its Spotify Radio feature.

Spotify's current radio activates when you select "start artist radio" at the top of an artist page or generates suggestions via tags, but doesn't allow you to save stations.

The revamped radio works largely the same way Pandora does. Users can drag any track to "radio" option in the sidebar of the desktop app, and Spotify will create a new radio station, which you can save. You have unlimited skipping and stations.

Pandora only allows users to create up to 100 stations. Even those with a paid subscription do not have unlimited skips. As this feature appears to be available for all levels of Spotify, it makes the service an enticing option for Pandora users.

The revamped Spotify radio is being rolled out in the next few days, and there's no word yet about updating the iOS app to update the feature. Those who want to try the feature now can download a preview version.

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Source: http://www.spotify.com/us/blog/archives/2011/12/09/discover-…

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Spotify already has proven itself a formidable competitor for Rdio, and the all-you-can-stream music service even matches up against...

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Adrian von Gegerfelt

They definitely need to revamp spotify radio, because it sucks! You choose rock and it plays blues, techno and it plays pop.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Spotify's library + Last.fm radio = awesome.

December 12 2011 at 10:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Anthony Lopez

It'll be tough competing with Pandora on the mobile side. Pandora is free while Mobile Spotify needs a premium membership... unless I missed something on the apps end.

December 11 2011 at 10:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

fn0000rd

It'll be interesting to see how it works out -- Pandora's Music Genome Project is mighty impressive, you can't just add this as a "feature" and beat them at a game they're very, very good at.

December 11 2011 at 10:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jon

I'm confused why anyone would buy this.. Their pricing is the same as regular old Spotify..

Pandora is also what, $30 a year? This is at minimum $60 and doesn't even include mobile listening at that price. I'm more than happy to pay $0 for Pandora and listen to the odd ad on my iPhone.

December 11 2011 at 7:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Jon's comment

Oscar Tijerina

The way I see it $10 is less than I would pay to buy 1 cd a month for the luxury of listening to any album artist or track as much as I would like anywhere I am. Free pandora is fine if you don't care about control but $10 to be able to pull up the exact song I want during a random party or conversation is well worth it to me. I wouldn't consider this a necessity but more like a luxury. Don't get me wrong... free stuff is great but $10 for music whenever, wherever I want it with no commercials, limitations or storage restrictions seems like a win for both me and the people who make music.

December 12 2011 at 12:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

John

I'm on the fence about renewing my Pandora account. On one hand, Pandora has suggested artists and songs I've never heard before, and really like. On the other, it gets annoying at some times when I have exhausted my skips, and after a while, the repetition of tracks gets annoying.

I've been using a free Spotify account, and am very tempted to upgrade. I'm probably going to let my Pandora account lapse, and upgrade to Spotify when they stop letting me listen for free.

December 11 2011 at 7:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply