SourceCode: TELUS strikes deals with RDIO, Skype to enhance its services

Telus' HTC Status gets you Google and Facebook on one device

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

TELUS held a Back To School Event for the media today to showcase its latest services, recent handsets as well as introduce some of the new service offerings including tighter integration with VoIP giant Skype as well as hot new social cloud music service Rdio.

We go to try RDIO's stellar social music service which offers a world of music on the desktop or on smartphones

TELUS and Rdio also announced that they intend to enter into an agreement that will give TELUS smartphone customers the ability to subscribe to Rdio, an unlimited, on-demand social music service, via their existing TELUS account. Rdio, founded by the creators of Skype, is the first service in Canada to bring social music discovery to mobile devices, giving users instant access to a growing catalogue of nearly nine million songs. Direct carrier billing will provide TELUS customers with a secure, convenient, and easy way to subscribe to Rdio, and to access and share their music on the go.

Rdio is changing the way people discover, share and listen to music. For $10/month, Rdio users can play any song, album, artist and playlist as many times as they like, without ever hearing a single ad. Users also have access to new albums the day they are released. Rdio makes music sharing effortless thanks to integration with Facebook and Twitter which enables users to easily share their favourite songs, albums and playlists with friends.

Brent Johnston, vice-president of mobility solutions at TELUS unveils its new services and solutions"TELUS is focused on curating the best Internet-based services for our mobile customers by partnering with innovative service providers who are leading on the global stage.  We want to deliver a superior customer experience by making it easy for our customers to enjoy the best of what brands like Rdio have to offer and empower them to choose the services that are right for them," said Brent Johnston, vice-president of mobility solutions at TELUS.

TELUS also showed some of its social smartphones, namely the INQ Cloud Touch and the HTC Status which integrate with primarily with Facebook even if they are Android OS phones.