Indonesian Music Streaming Service Ohdio to Launch June 14

Ohdio is a startup that aims to offer a free online music streaming service for Indonesians, backed by a comprehensive library of Indonesian music. We spotted Ohdio back in March when it was just a website with a logo and a sign up form. It actually still is today, but since then it has picked up a number of deals with local music labels and a significant funding from East Ventures, with a launch date set for June 14 according to its press release which was published on Tuesday.

Although Ohdio only announced publicly that it has begun to accept registration this week, the company actually has had it open since March. With one week to launch date, the company has scored deals with major local labels including Aquarius, Trinity and Nagaswara.

Ohdio CEO Yoga Nandiwardhana said in a statement, "The web music streaming concept is definitely not new, even in Indonesia, but we want to put forward how easy it is to search and share music. We want to empower one of the main characteristics of the Indonesian music listener – that listening to music is as much of a social activity as it is personal."

Ohdio's service works with any modern browser on the standard desktop environment but it has no short term plans to open mobile access despite the huge market potential. Asked about this apparent oddity, company Cheerleader (yes, that's his job title) Ario Tamat said that "eventually we'll go down that road but not really in near-term plans, because everyone is Indonesia is trying to do mobile, but nobody's doing the web."

The statement sounds like a strange one because services like Telkom's Melon and Speedy offer music subscription and download services for desktop users. Additionally, both he and Nandiwardhana are veterans of the mobile industry, so one would think that they would want to be in the mobile space from the beginning. He did say though, that currently some music services offer too much without really solving anything.

Monetizing mobile is something that many companies, especially startups, have yet to crack, so perhaps what Ohdio aims to do is to ensure a solid revenue stream that would work on both web and mobile without being specific to a particular medium before jumping into the mobile scene. After all, having their deep experience in the mobile industry would have given them enough insight as to how the environment would react to such a service.

While Ohdio's streaming service will be free, it will offer a premium service that removes certain limitations such as the number of playlists a listener can have and how long members can stream in a day. It will also offer sponsorship and advertising to support its operations.

Because Ohdio is not a music store, or at least it won't start as one, it does not plan to provide a download service to its subscribers. However, the company is already looking into the possibility of offering such an option through third party sites although the details of which are still not available.