Rara online music streaming service goes live

Another new song-streaming service has been launched with an initial trial of 99p or the premium version for £2 per month for the first three months.

Rara.com, which has launched in 16 countries, said its research of 1,000 people suggested that 70 per cent of people are reluctant to pay out or use any of the current digital music services such as Spotify; so it wanted to simplify the process of streaming music online.

Rara's creators say it is aimed not at technologically savvy users but at "people who may not be comfortable downloading an application and people who are confused rather than excited when confronted with album art."

Users can go straight to Rara's homepage and then click a "station" to immediately start playing playlists based on a person's mood. The new site will also let leading musicians share their own favourite tracks with users.

Grammy award-winning musician Imogen Heap has been signed up as an associate editor. Her job will be to select playlists for users, and, Mr Lewis said, she "had a strong hand in the design of the service".

The company is a spin-off from Omnifone, which supplies streaming music services to several big-name corporations. And in a bid to kick start interest the service will be pre-loaded on all HP devices.

Unlike some other services such as Spotify, there will be no ads on Rara. After the initial trial people can opt to pay for a £4.99 monthly subscription which like Spotify only allows the user to use the service when they are online.

Like Spotify, the premium £9.99 per month service lets users download an app to their Android  or iPhone mobile and stream music to through this device. Any played track is automatically stored on the device so it can be listen to when the user is offline.