You can add Rdio to your list of streaming music services offering long-term freebies. It has just announced that Australians can now get a six month free trial — but there are quite a few limits.
The trial does not include Rdio’s mobile applications, so you are limited to listening via web browser or Rdio’s existing Windows and Mac client applications. That’s in contrast to services like Guvera which takes the free (ad-supported) approach to the mobile world, or the premium-trial options of many of the other providers, where they’d prefer you get hooked on the full service. For a full overview, why not check out Lifehacker’s comparison of every Australian subscription music service?
Six months isn’t bad for free music, but there’s another distinctly more vague catch. The trial allows you to “listen free on the web for up to six months, depending on how many songs you stream”, but there’s no hard data to say how many songs that is upfront, and Rdio’s own “Learn More” pages on the subject annoyingly redirect back to the Rdio main page. A meter is apparently meant to tell you how many free songs you’ve got left per month, which suggests a hard limit, but then why is it a case of being “up to” six months? As always, we’d prefer it if the language was more clear and upfront; while you’re not being charged for the service, there’s still a time input in building playlists and the like that could be put into other services.
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