Streaming music service launches in NZ

Update:

The Rara app is now available on the Android market.

Original story:

A new streaming music service called Rara Music has launched in New Zealand today.

The service joins Grooveshark and Sony's Music Unlimited on the list of streaming music services currently available, and launches ahead of Spotify, which is said to be coming next year. It launched less than 24 hours after launching in the US, UK, and other territories in Europe.

Rara Music has more than 10 million songs available for download.

"With rara.com, you can create playlists, share music, listen to unlimited music stations, enjoy the latest charts, and discover music through personal recommendations, as well as experience great music selected for you by our editors," the company said on its website.

Musician Imogen Heap is an associate editor for Rara and spoke highly of the company's business model.

"I've travelled the world this year and have realised that even if fans want to pay for artists' work consuming it legally online can often be very difficult," Heap said.

"[Rara] is a super easy service for everyone to use and I love the information on tracks and artists that rara.com gives you."

The service costs $1.99 for a web-only service for the first three months, and $2.99 for web and mobile access to Rara through an Android phone. After the trial period is up, it will cost $8.99 for web-only and $13.99 for web and mobile services.

In the web version music can only be streamed, not downloaded and stored locally. However, the Rara Android app caches songs previously played on the memory cards of smartphones. This means customers can listen to the song on Wi-Fi, then again on the go even without 3G data enabled.