The latest update to Rdio’s iOS app includes Song Stations:

Start a station based on any song to hear more from that artist and other related artists.

It’s basically like Pandora — you pick a song you like and then Rdio does the rest. But you can chose to play songs from only the artist you selected, or you can play songs from related artists as well.

Rdio’s Song Stations are powered by The Echo Nest, which boasts over one trillion data points regarding their known songs, artists, and customer base of music providers (such as Spotify and Twitter Music).

I listen to Rdio most of the day, but the Auto Play feature that kicks in when an album or playlist is over usually stinks at picking songs I actually want to listen to at the time they come on. Because Auto Play is basically just a shuffle of my entire collection. Which means, say I’m listening to a John Mayer album, and when it’s over the instrumental version of Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” will come on (I don’t even know how that song made its way into my collection in the first place). Not exactly what you’d expect to hear next, is it?

Yesterday and today I’ve been listening to the new Song Stations and so far, compared to Pandora, they’re hit and miss. Pandora’s algorithms are second to none — when I set up a station in Pandora I almost always get nothing but good picks. It’s still my preferred way to listen to jazzy Christmas music.

I’d love for Rdio to incorporate a setting for Song Station so that when I’m done listening to an album, Rdio would use that artist as the basis for auto playing the next songs. Thus keeping in the same audio stream as opposed to just a random shuffle from my whole collection.