The next step for streaming music sites like Spotify and Pandora is to get into video-streaming entertainment — or is it?
That’s what streaming-music rival Rdio is doing by launching Vdio, where users can rent, buy and share movies, similar to services by well-known competitors like Amazon Video and iTunes. Vdio will be open to paid Rdio Unlimited subscribers in the United States and the United Kingdom, but Rdio’s vice president of product Malthe Sigurdsson told GigaOM that Vdio will be open to all countries sometime this summer.
He said to CNet: “[Vdio is] the next extension in our strategy to become a full-fledged entertainment service.”
Unlike Rdio, which charges a monthly subscription fee for listening to commercial free music on your smartphone, Vdio is not a subscription service because studios won’t give them the option to stream their content on an unlimited basis at this time. Instead, Vdio users can buy and rent titles such as “Life of Pi” and “Zero Dark Thirty” for their own consumption.
Current Rdio Unlimited subscribers can start enjoying Vdio with a $25 promotional credit towards rentals and purchases from the site. It is available on desktop computers as a dedicated iPad app.
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