As the music world gets deeper into technology and further away from the old school, The Vinyl District has brought things back around with its free GPS-based Record Store Locator App for iPhone or Android. As the site claims, it's the only GPS-based record store locator app in the US. It's as simple as pressing the All Stores button in the app and waiting for a list of stores to appear along with addresses and mapped locations.
I've been testing it a little bit and I have to say that so far, it's working rather well. The app was able to find the two record stores on my block as well as all of the shops located nearby around the LES, East Village, and West Village. I'm pretty sure there's nothing missing in the listings for my hood. I've walked around a little bit and whenever I've given the app a spin, it comes up with a reasonable list of results. I'm eager to try this out when I travel and see where it takes me. I wonder how this app was put together- did someone manually enter every record store into a database? I'd love to know. As I understand it, they'll be adding the UK at some point in time. Eventually, it would be incredible if you could use this app anywhere you happen to be to help you go a'hunting for vinyl. One addition I'd like to see is the ability to enter a zip code, city name, or neighborhood (i.e. Silver Lake) and bring up results. I realize that's not exactly GPS but I think it would be a great enhancement.
As much as I love how technology has changed the way we create and consume music (as written about here and here), I'm really struck by the idea of using current technology to help sustain old school record shopping. As all of these stores are locally owned, this app is a wonderful way to help out our independent record store owners as they try to stay alive in today's music market.
Check it all out here!
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