Skype founders to launch music streaming service – Rdio

According to a Bloomberg report, the serial entrepreneur and investor duo Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis will early next year launch a subscription music service – Rdio, which will be funded by their own investment firm Atomico Ventures.

Zennstrom and Friis have earlier founded companies like Internet telephony Skype and the disruptive digital file-sharing service Kazaa; as well as their most recent startup Joost, which failed to make it big and has been put into liquidation.

The forthcoming Rdio service will enable users to share and archive music by means of a browser and facilitate its streaming to mobile devices. Though the pricing aspect has yet to be worked out since the service is still being tested, the founders are looking to strike deals with the four leading music labels.

Initially, the Rdio service will be launched in the US, to compete in the market where Napster and Pandora are already offering subscription-based music packages.

The already-appointed Rdio CEO Drew Larner said that the chief idea behind the new service is to provide subscription streaming that falls between PC and mobile.

Meanwhile, talking to Bloomberg about the forthcoming venture, Friis said: “We have watched many ad-supported music businesses come and go. We felt the time was right to revisit this space, this time with a compelling offering and a sustainable subscription model.”