Rdio Just Got Better With Discounted Family Plans

Rdio Unlimited Family, announced today, is a new discounted way to have more than one account for your family and friends. Calling it "the industry's first digital music family plan," Rdio hopes to allow folks who know each other group their accounts in bundles of up to three at a time. Each account acts as it's own individual account, with the ability to listen to an individual mix of the over 10 million songs on the Rdio service. Users can also follow other Rdio listeners, and share songs and playlists with other users, Facebook, and Twitter. The accounts are fully functional Rdio accounts, able to access their unique settings on a variety of devices and platforms, including the iPad, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 7, as well as home devices like Sonos and Roku.

"When we first introduced Rdio, everyone in the industry offered the same rates and service plans for on-demand music: five dollars per month for Web-only access and ten dollars per month for Web and mobile," said Drew Larner, CEO of Rdio. "Now with whole families using Rdio, we've had a tremendous number of requests from our users for a family plan. We're really proud to be the first digital music service to bring this type of plan to market."

The new Rdio Unlimited Family Plan, users can save 10% with a two-account plan, at $17.99/month. If there are three accounts purchased in the bundle, there is a 23% savings, coming in at $22.99/month, while additional accounts above and beyond the three are charged at the standard $.9.99 per month. So, while a family of six will save some on the first three accounts, it might behoove them to purchase two family accounts, with up to three accounts each.

We hope to see more services adopt this "buy more, save more" approach with time, and Rdio is leading the way. I look forward to the time when the discounted savings includes more than three at a time, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.