Locusic allows music lovers to discover local artists and stream their work online or via its mobile app.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Des Moines-based local music player Locusic. But the startup’s founder and CEO Jake Kerber says that was intentional.
“From a marketing and publicity standpoint, Locusic kind of went dark almost a year ago,” Kerber told SPN. “That was basically because I wanted to build out the site’s back end. There were a lot of things I wanted to do from a web platform standpoint that didn’t necessarily fit within the existing information architecture, so I went back to the drawing board on the design of the interface.”
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Now, with a completely redesigned web platform and recently released Android app, the service is back with a whole new look. Like its earlier version, Locusic allows users to stream local music online or via its mobile app. Kerber says in order to update the player and add some of the features he wanted though, he had to slightly change how he thought about his company.
The result is an easier-to-use interface, the ability to select music by a variety of genres and a more pronounced list of artists whose music appears on Locusic. 
With the new version of Locusic, users can choose to listen to artists from their current geographic location or their pre-selected home location. The service will update a user’s position automatically every 15 minutes or so, allowing them to be exposed to a larger cross-section of local artists.
“The thought is if you’re on a road trip, you’ll just hit “Current Location” and it’ll keep updating as you drive,” Kerber (right) said.
Currently users can only listen artists in central Iowa and the Twin Cities area, but Kerber says that could change soon. As more and more music is uploaded to the site to populate its content, Kerber will unlock different cities around Iowa on Locusic. But before he tries to scale Locusic, Kerber says its important to prove the music player has value not only for listeners but also for artists.
“If there’s not enough value there, there’s no point in trying to scale.”
The free Locusic app is now available for Android in the Google Play store.
Credits: App images from Google Play Store.
