Internationally successful music subscription service Rdio is now available in Australia. There’s now a rapidly growing number of music services for Aussies to choose from, including Zune, Songl, JB Hi-Fi NOW and now Rdio. So lets take a look at how it stacks up.

To begin the free trial period only lasts 7 days instead of 30 like the others, although figuring out if its going to work for you probably won’t take that long. Once that time expires, then you’re left with two subscription options – Web only or Unlimited.

The Web only streaming gives you access to millions of songs using your desktop browser for A$8.90 per month. The Unlimited plan gets you streaming from the desktop as well as mobile clients for on-the-go listening. Rdio unlimited costs A$12.90 per month.

One great part of the Ultimate plan is that those of us with SONOS music systems around the house can also use Rdio. Previously Songl was the only available subscription service available for SONOS. While not exactly common place, those who have SONOS, love it, so it is a nice inclusion, but doesn’t appear to be listed as yet.

Mobile

The mobile apps are free and available in the App Store / Market / Marketplace now. While the Windows Phone and iOS apps are similar in functionality, the Android appears to be a little light on.

Like other subscription music services, you can download music for playback offline, but would need to connect after a period of time to check your subscription is still active.

It seems you can only stream from one device at a time, attempting to play Rdio on a second or third device will stop the first from playing.

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Price

While web-only might appeal to some, I consider a music service really only a viable option if they have a mobile solution. The table below compares the premium subscriptions of all four music subscriptions. Keep in mind that price alone shouldn’t be your only decision. NOW is the cheapest and it should be, no mobile apps and less music.

Rdio	$12.90pm
Songl	$12.99pm
Zune	$11.99pm (119.90py)
NOW	$8.33pm (3 months min)

Overall

It’s great to see more choice for consumers when it comes to music services. The model is definitely here to stay at as more consumers open their minds to streaming rather than owning music, the growth curve will only continue to the top-right. Personally I’m sold on the concept, as someone who enjoys the latest music, buying never really made sense.

So how does Rdio stack up compared to other local offerings ? The app support puts it ahead of JB Hi-Fi NOW, the iOS support puts it ahead of Zune, but then again doesn’t exist on the Xbox. When the SONOS component goes live that’ll really be enticing as mentioned above the only other option was Songl.

There doesn’t appear to be any noticeable quality differences between the services, so the choice really comes down to which offering matches your needs. In terms of Catalogue, I’ve found Zune to be the best, but so far Rdio is matching it. The exact number of tracks is in the millions but isn’t listed anywhere. Check it out, see what you think the trail is free for 7 days.

It’s been around a month since JB Hi-Fi launched which means the free ride is over. With the trial expiring it’s time to decide if you’re going to lay down the cash and subscribe to the service. While JB Hi-Fi has a unique web interface and some pretty great social features like mixed tape, there are some serious draw backs to their offering.

First off JB Hi-Fi NOW does not have any mobile apps, meaning its only available via the web. The expectation of most people these days is that services have a mobile version for access while you’re out and about. The lack of a mobile applications on iOS, Android and Windows Phone is a big omission.

The catalogue of music isn’t as extensive as competitor Zune, but does that matter? Its not important that they have every track in the world, but rather the tracks you want to listen too. So how have you found the trial in terms of content?

Personally I think I think NOW is a decent offering from JB Hi-Fi, particularly as this is the first serious web app they’ve built. When we first heard about the service, it was a little concerning based on their seriously pathetic website. Ultimately the web app is fantastic, but the lack of a mobile solution means I won’t be paying for it on-going.

Brisbane-based tech startup LiveScene has launched today. LiveScene allows users to discover live music events in your area and allows promoters to connect with music fans. At the heart of today’s launch, is an iPhone app which is now available for free in the App Store.

After firing up the app and discovering a number of music events around your current location, it’s clear they are solving a real problem. While A-list music artists can rely on sales from large-scale services like Ticketek work great, but fail to service smaller local gigs.

Founder of LiveScene, Sean Bunton says “With live music venues losing customers to popular clubs and being forced to close, it’s clear that people are struggling to discover and support local live music. We are here to help.”

Users can access a map-view with events pinned around your GPS-located position, or choose from a list view if that’s more your style. As with any good local, mobile app, there’s also social included with Facebook integration. This means when you discover a live music event, you can share it with your friends, to find someone to go with.

Management
LiveScene also helps bands and band management by providing tools to promote their events. The iPhone app makes it easy for artists to add events to LiveScene, then share them in seconds. Events promotion Push Notifications can be purchased in batches of 50 for A$5.49. These can be used to remind fans of the artist that the event is starting soon and increase ticket sales.

Using location aware Push Notifications is a modern and highly targeted form of marketing, and LiveScene is smart and can detect how many users are near a particular venue. You can then schedule the notifications to go out 30 minutes before an event begins, or you can send them out instantly! You are much more likely to get people through the doors if they are standing right outside.

Another option is to have your event promoted in the app, which can be purchased for $0.99. The app still only displays promoted events to people in that location, which makes sense as they are the most likely to make it to the gig.

Other platforms
Right now the website’s devoted to the iPhone app download, but I’d love to see this transferred to another portal for finding local gigs, similar to Foursquare’s web version which surfaces items in your area. Some devices are starting to ship with GPS chips embedded for use with location-aware websites, until then this process has to be manual, best guessing form an IP-address doesn’t work.

Let’s hope Android and Windows Phone users also see an app for LiveScene released shortly. The goal is admirable, but only truly achievable when all platforms are supported. Now go enjoy your music!

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More information @ LiveScene

Today we get another entrant into the ultra-competitive streaming music service landscape in Australia. Music retailer JB Hi-Fi has just gone live with the beta of their offering called NOW. You can try out the service now for 1 month free, just signup using your mobile number at https://now.jbhifi.com.au. After a quick verification process, you’ll have access to over 10 million tracks and over 100,000 artists.

Design
Design wise the site is actually pretty slick, using a lot of AJAXY goodness to position content across your screen regardless of the resolution. The UI varies significantly from screen to screen, at times appearing as a cross between Metro-style and the front page of The Verge. It is however only web-based right now, but expect mobile apps to arrive shortly for iPhone and Android, as always WP7 support is a question mark.

Discovery and social
Music discovery along with social Mix Tapes is a big differentiator for NOW. If you come across a user that selects music that suits your tastes, then you can follow them to hear more. Along with standard sales charts, there’s also JB Recommendations as well as the wisdom of the crowds to choose from. There’s even a list of influential people on the service that right now looks like those that have the most followers.

Pricing
After your one month is up, you’ll need to pay for access to NOW. Prices start at $25 for 3 months ($8.33pm), up to 12 months for $80 ($6.67pm). Payment options include PayPal, Credit Card, JB Hi-Fi Gift Card or a dedicated NO Music Card. It is also important to remember there’s no option to download individual tracks to keep, this is purely streaming only.

Competition
If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice these prices are cheaper than Microsoft’s Zune Pass offerings at $12pm or $120py, the reason is that NOW has a smaller catalogue. The other Aussie music service Songl is priced at $8.99pm at the entry level or $12.99 for higher quality.

While you can’t go month to month at this stage, JB-HiFi is NOW the cheapest way to get into subscription in Australia. There’s likely to be opportunities in-store to try out the catalogue or use the free trial to see it meets your needs.

The FAQ page provides some interesting insights into the issues related to putting this service together.

Why can’t I find a certain notable Artist or Song ?
JB Hi-Fi NOW holds the license to over 10 Million Song. There are three main reasons why certain tracks or artists are not currently available on JB Hi-Fi NOW. 1. We are still loading them. The service has live over 90% of all tracks consumed digitally in Australia and we adding tens of thousands more each day 2. Some artists have chosen not to make their music available for online streaming services. We really hope that they change their minds in the future. As soon as they do, they’ll be very welcome on JB Hi-Fi NOW. 3. Some artists have divided their rights between different record labels that cover different regions. This means their music will be available in Country A but not in Country B. This will become less of an issue as we sign more deals.

Overall
There’s actually some really interesting things going on with NOW, so check it out and let me know what you think. First impression are good, but without dedicated desktop or mobile applications, it’s really hard to compare. The lack of a desktop client could have been largely mitigated had they supported IE9’s pinned sites for playback. If you’d like to follow me on NOW, you can do that NOW.

More information @ https://now.jbhifi.com.au

Update
Despite switching on the website and launching the Android app, Songl claims that it didn’t actually launch today. A tweet from them says the ‘Official launch of Songl coming soon’.

There was actually two music streaming services that launched in Australia today, although you’d hardly know it. Songl, the joint venture between Sony and Universal, is the renamed anubis.fm that we’ve covered before on techAU. Unfortunately they couldn’t have chosen a worse day for the launch.

Songl’s launch had to compete with the 500 pound gorilla – Microsoft’s Zune Music. After launching internationally a couple of years ago, there was a lot of pent up demand for Zune and actually reasonable brand recognition.

Socially, the last two days have seen twitter flooded with tweets of international attention about Zune’s Australian launch. Sadly the only tweet today about Songl, was from Songl’s own twitter account.

To make matters worse, the Songl iPhone app isn’t available on launch day for download. Instead is currently waiting approval from Apple. With mobile apps being sold as one of the new features that would make Songl better than anubis.fm, it seems like a big miss step. There is however an Android application available.

The last piece of the sad launch for Songl is its integration with Sonos. Unfortunately there’s no Sonos update to remove references to anubis.fm and replace it with Songl.

I’m not sure what kind of budget has been allocated, but I kind of feel bad for them, with this promotional video being the best marketing they can muster.

Overall the only thing that has gone right is the launch of the website, now live you existing and new users can sign in.

More info @ Songl.

Originally scheduled for release tomorrow (16th November 2011), it seems Microsoft have pulled the trigger early. Users can now signup for a Zune Music Pass. The three options available are 14-day free trial, 12-month subscription for $119.90 and 1 month for $11.99.

The music can be played back on the web, desktop Zune client, WP7 and soon Xbox 360. With access to over 11 million tracks, $12 seems like a pretty good deal. The biggest issue facing Zune is the lack of iPhone and Android support. Naturally Microsoft want Zune Music to drive sales of Windows Phones, but there’s likely to be plenty of people happy with their smart phones that would love to use Zune Pass.

For Windows Phone 7 users, this is the music solution that has been missing from the platform in Australia. Until now, users were forced to obtain music from other services and sync to their device. Zune Pass now makes WP7 a viable solution for music and media lovers.

Update
Looks like you’ll only be able to stream Zune music on one device at a time. It also looks like the free trial turns into $12 per month subscription after 14 days unless you opt out.

Update 2
While Zune Pass is available through the web, Zune desktop software and Xbox, it is still yet to reach Windows Phone devices.

Update 3
Zune just added a special Australian tile in the Zune desktop software to welcome Australians to the social. This confirms what we told you 6 hours ago, Zune Music is now available in Australia.

Update 4
This morning things got official, with the update of the front page at Zune.net/en-au (by the way Microsoft, please register zune.net.au). It seems Microsoft found an extra couple of million tracks in their catalogue, now number 13 million.

More info @ Zune.net/en-au

Anubis.fm will soon become Songl. If you’re not familiar with Anubis.fm, it’s one of Australia’s first music subscriptions services, run by Sony, originally called bandit fm. Digital Music Distribution (DMD) is a new joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment Australia and Universal Music who will rename the service to Songl.

The change will occur officially on Wednesday 16 November 2011, but the site is already live if you visit songl.com. To get a free trial account, you’ll need an invite code, it doesn’t look like existing accounts are working yet.

Songl has some increased benefits to users including:

• A new improved web interface which allows easier creation of playlists.
• User playlists are accessible from more devices including PC, Sonos, iPhone and Android phones.
• Mobile phone access which allows users to access their music on the move.
• Both an iPhone app and Android app will be available from the iTunes store and the Android Market respectively from Tuesday 22 November 2011.
• 320 kilobit (high quality) streaming is available to Sonos, Web and mobile users. Simply select your preferred setting in Account Details.

Official confirmation of mobile applications is welcome news to members, after being told for months that a mobile anubis.fm was ‘coming soon’. That long-awaited app will now arrive with the name Songl, regardless of the name, a music subscription service without a mobile solution is a sitting duck for competitors.

Existing Anubis.fm members should be aware of the key information below:

• Your Anubis.fm login and password will still work on Songl from Wednesday 16th November 2011.
• Your Anubis.fm Premium membership (or existing free trial) will be honoured and continued as a Songl Premium membership till your next monthly anniversary date (after which it will not automatically renew) AND you will be given a further FREE 30 day trial on Songl from that date.
• At the end of the 30 day free trial, we will request that you re-enter your payment details to continue as a Songl Premium member.
• There may be a temporary reduction in the number of artists and tracks available on Songl. This will be rectified as soon as possible.

According to the FAQ page on Songl, it will only be available in Australia, with plans for international expansion in the future. Another interesting detail is that premium members can cache up to 1,000 songs on their mobile device for offline playback. The system will check at least every 7 days to ensure your subscription is active, if not, the tracks will cease to playback.

Membership types are listed in the graphic below, starting at $8.99pm for the basic, or $12.99 for premium. This will go head to head with Microsoft’s Zune Music, set to launch in Australia shortly for $12pm, but supports WP7, Xbox and PC playback rather than Sonos, PC and iPhone/Android.

Subscription services are really heating up in Australia, with a number of other high profile international services like Spotify launching here in early 2012. Ultimately competition and choice is great for consumers, with options to suit everyone’s needs.

More information @ http://songl.com

It has been years in the making, but the best sign yet that Australian’s will be getting Zune Music was revealed today. Long Zheng post on istartedsomething.com that an anonymous user (WP7 developer) had sent Zune music screenshots with Australian pricing. Since then, I have independently verified this.

It requires you to be a Windows Phone developer with Zune desktop software 4.8, which is only available to developers. Zune 4.8 will ship when Mango does later this year, but is also likely to include the ability for Australians to download music and podcasts.

To be honest, without these two items, its really hard to justify recommending WP7 to friends when the end-to-end solution is really broken. Sure you could still purchase music through iTunes, then import into Zune, but if your investing in a Microsoft solution, having iTunes installed is probably something your trying to avoid.

This brings me to the price of tracks, the news isn’t good. While this service is anything but officially announced and pricing may change, its currently priced at 129 Microsoft Points, or A$2.39. More than its biggest rival iTunes which costs A$2.19 for the same track. Zune’s biggest trump card has always been Zune Pass, the subscription music that’s affordable and hosts an impressive library. I seriously hope this comes to Australia, as someone who likes current music, its incredibly expensive to continue buying the latest tracks. Subscription makes a whole lot of sense.

Podcasts should have been available internationally from day one. There’s no music label deals to be done, so why Zune ever shipped without podcast support in Australia is a mystery. Zune 4.8 looks to remedy this. About time. 

More @ iStartedSomething

In an email to TiVo subscribers, news arrives that Sony Music content will no longer be available on TiVo. Starting from the 27th June 2011 the content loss also extends to Bandit.fm content. While the reason why the Sony Music content is being pulled still remains a mystery, what is clear is that TiVo is going backwards in Australia.

No new models, features or updates are being released and now content is beginning to disappear. While the US version of TiVo are enjoying Series 4 devices with a much improved flash-driven HD UI, and iPhone/iPad apps, Australians are left out in the cold with Series 3.

While its doubtful that many consumers bought the TiVo for its IP-delivered media (still SD), any loss of content or functionality sends the platform in the wrong direction. On the 27th of June, the content will disappear automatically.

Read the full message @ TiVo

International Windows Phone users get their music fix from the Zune marketplace, unfortunately Australians are still waiting for a music solution. Today Universal Music launched a new application for Windows Phone 7, called GetMusic, this free app gives Aussies their first chance to buy music on the platform.

Prices for singles range from A$1.65 for back catalogue to $2.15 for new releases. This compares to A$1.69 – A$2.19 for iTunes music, while its cheaper, the problem is the limited selection of music.

While Universal is one of the 4 major labels, they are just that.. one label. Music purchasers should never have to wonder if a certain track or artist is available in a music store, not in 2011. There are 356 artists listed on the Getmusic site, while on first glance its a decent range, we should remember there are hundreds of thousands of artists. This means your chances of finding your favourite niche music are not great.

While there is a limited ‘Feature’ section, there’s no chart information, leaving users no option to browse or see what’s popular. Universal could have used in-store sales or even partnered with top40 to bring local charts, instead the best we get is a ‘latest releases’ list.

To its credit, the Getmusic app does provide additional information on artists with a News section, however its strangely the first screen you see when pressing on an artist. This gets in the way of your music purchasing experience. Sure it’d be great to have the ability to flick sideways and access it if your interested, but the primary focus should be the music.

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Lets compare the buying process between the iPhone and Getmusic on WP7.

Overall buying music from Getmusic is a pretty broken experience when compared to the market leader – iTunes. Sure you could continue to use iTunes to buy your music, then download to your computer, then sync to your WP7 device. If your thinking Getmusic is a legitimate replacement for Zune, it is not.

More information, signup and auto-playing music at http://getmusic.com.au/