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Spotify to challenge Pandora with Spotify Radio

Spotify already has proven itself a formidable competitor for Rdio, and the all-you-can-stream music service even matches up against iTunes with a subscription model versus iTunes' track-at-a-time sales approach. Now it's aiming the crosshairs at suggestion engine Pandora with a revamp of its Spotify Radio feature.

Spotify's current radio activates when you select "start artist radio" at the top of an artist page or generates suggestions via tags, but doesn't allow you to save stations.

The revamped radio works largely the same way Pandora does. Users can drag any track to "radio" option in the sidebar of the desktop app, and Spotify will create a new radio station, which you can save. You have unlimited skipping and stations.

Pandora only allows users to create up to 100 stations. Even those with a paid subscription do not have unlimited skips. As this feature appears to be available for all levels of Spotify, it makes the service an enticing option for Pandora users.

The revamped Spotify radio is being rolled out in the next few days, and there's no word yet about updating the iOS app to update the feature. Those who want to try the feature now can download a preview version.