Swede Niklas Zennström has launched his latest creation - Rdio.

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Social music service Rdio, with a catalog containing more than 7 million tracks, is the latest creation from Kazaa and Skype founders Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström.

While Swedish streaming service Spotify is struggles to bring its free service to the US, Rdio is likely to fill the gap. It was officially launched Tuesday for users in the US and Canada and the response from tech media was cheerful.

“Rdio's real strength as a service largely revolves around its social media functionality, relying on the listening habits of users' friends for album recommendations, rather than the more standard computer algorithms based upon a user's own listening history”, PC Mag wrote.

It already has deals with the big four, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner. The service also has apps for the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

For Spotify, that's been on the point of launching in the US for over a year, negotiations with record labels have taken longer than anticipated. Rdio will be competing primarily with Rhapsody and Napster.

The service -- pronounced ar-dee-oh -- costs $9.99 per month for web and mobile access and $4.99 for web-only access.

Full statement by the company.