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Rdio's Wilson Miner: 'iTunes is just a fancy CD changer'

Rdio's Wilson Miner: 'iTunes is just a fancy CD changer'

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Rdio's Wilson Miner talks to The Verge about the site's brand new redesign.

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At SXSW 2012, I met with Rdio's head of design Wilson Miner to talk about the music service's new redesign launched yesterday. He explained the redesign has been in the works since the current version launched, and that the team started in earnest about a year ago. I asked about the shift from music apps of the past, like iTunes, that offered full control over metadata, ratings, and smart playlists. Miner said, "my collection is bigger than the iTunes Store was when it launched," and explained the Rdio team has been working on many of these things — notably ratings. "iTunes is just a fancy CD changer," Miner said, and taking these ideas from a desktop app where you've already curated your own collection to music services where you have access to millions of songs "is a non-trivial task."

Facebook's Open Graph has been good for the company, but it sounds like they're waiting to see how it plays out. Rdio's integration into Facebook's Ticker and Timeline can nearly be overwhelming now if you're the only person sharing with your friends, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves as more users start to plug their music services into the site. Check out the video below for the full interview.