Over the past few months I’ve had an opportunity to extensively test Rdio and iTunes Match, which each take a different approach to bringing your music library to the cloud.  With Rdio, $9.99/month gets you full access to the service’s library of 9 billion songs. With iTunes Match, the service acts as an online storage locker for your existing music library for $24.99/year and allows you to upgrade matched tracks to higher quality versions available in the iTunes Store.

Both services allow you to stream music from your mobile phone, but you’ll want a large data plan with a reputable cellular carrier if you plan to take your music library with you everywhere you go.

Rdio

Pros:

- Full access to a huge library of 9 billion songs.
- Imports your existing library through desktop client.
- Easily discover new artists and add them to your library.
- Listen on the web, desktop (Mac and Windows), living room (Roku and Sonos), and on your mobile phone (iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7).
- Offline support for mobile apps.

Cons:

- Higher subscription fee ($4.99/month for web streaming, $9.99/month for mobile streaming)
- Songs are no longer available if you cancel your subscription.
- Some albums are not available in all regions.

Read our full review of Rdio on Ominocity.

iTunes Match

Pros:

- Ability to upgrade matched songs to higher quality versions available in the iTunes Store.
- Uploads only unmatched songs to the cloud, saving time and bandwidth.
- Easily stream to other Mac and PC computers through iTunes and the Music app on iOS devices.
- Downloads tracks for offline play on the iPhone and iPad.
- Upgraded tracks remain available even if you cancel the service.

Cons:

- No ability to discover new artists or albums aside from purchasing through the iTunes Store.
- Mobile streaming available for iOS devices only.  No support for Android, Blackberry, or Windows Phone 7.
- Must manually upgrade tracks through a complicated process.
- Matching of tracks is imperfect. Occasionally one track of an album will be uploaded while all other tracks are matched.

Read our full review of iTunes Match on Ominocity.

Conclusion

After subscribing to Rdio for several months I am completely in love with the service. When a friend recommends a band, I can launch Rdio’s iPhone app and instantly add their albums to my library. I’ve expanded my music library immensely with this great music discovery tool!

While I feel it was worth $24.99 to upgrade my poorly ripped tracks to higher quality versions, I will not be renewing my subscription to iTunes Match next year. Compared to Rdio, iTunes Match is highly disappointing. I would much rather pay a higher subscription fee to gain access to everything the iTunes Store has to offer than be limited to streaming my existing library.

If you are interested in checking out Rdio, click here to sign up for a 7 day free trial!

Here’s a spy shot of the construction to tide you over:

Ominocity, our local music blog, has announced OMFEST, an indie music festival to celebrate its first anniversary.

OMFEST takes place on Saturday, March 3, 2012 at Louis’ Pub (93 Campus Dr, Saskatoon, SK) and begins promptly at 6 p.m.

Advanced tickets are available exclusively at http://www.ominocity.com/tickets

2011 was extremely kind to our business and we would like to share with you our highlights from the past year and thank you for your continued support.

- Like every year before it, 2011 was our biggest and best year. Our sales grew substantially over last year which we attribute to a lot of hard work, increased networking efforts, and the diminishing effect of the worldwide economic recession. A big thank you to our clients!

- We moved into a wonderful co-working space called The Two Twenty in September. We love it so much here that we will be expanding into a larger suite in the building later in the year. Check out a video tour of the building that was filmed during the wild grand opening party that was held in November.

- To celebrate the 8 year anniversary of our web hosting division, we revamped our hosting plans giving all customers a free upgrade featuring as much 5x the resources. We also implemented new hosting technologies in order to improve server stability and performance.

- We acquired our second hosting business in April, purchasing the customers of Collision Hosting, a small US firm.

- We launched Ominocity, a local music blog with accompanying iPhone and Android apps in March.  6 months later Ominocity was voted as Best Local Website in Planet S Magazine’s “Best of Saskatoon” reader poll.

- Varial was a sponsor again to the massive Halifax Pop Explosion music festival and also sponsored the YYJ Freelance Camp and BarCamp Saskatoon networking events. Ominocity staff even gave the closing presentation at BarCamp Saskatoon!

Order a web hosting plan using the coupon code “HAPPYHOLIDAYS” and get 50% OFF your hosting fee on your first invoice.  This promotion applies to all available billing cycles so if you decide to pay monthly, you will get 50% off your first month, however if you decide on an annual, biennual, or triennual billing cycle, you can get up to 50% off your first 3 years of service!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER NOW!

* Offer expires on December 31, 2011 and is valid for new orders only.

Thread Saskatoon put together an excellent video tour of The Two Twenty during the wild grand opening party that saw over 600 visitors on November 10th.  Collective Coffee‘s Jackson Weibe gives a tour of the building and its notable tenants while the party was in full swing.

The Two Twenty, the co-working building where our new office is located is having a grand opening party Thursday evening feature indie rock, DJ’s, and other artistic performances. Come get a tour of our new office and take in a very unique event!

Details on the grand opening party can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=299189296760939

Along with sponsoring the event, members of our staff will be giving the talk “How to Create an Award-Winning Blog in 6 Months” at BarCamp Saskatoon tomorrow from 12pm-9pm at VendAsta. If you will be attending the event, be sure to check out our presentation!

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.  If you are still experiencing any connectivity issues, please contact our support department.