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Detour — Personalized selection of reads. Private by default.
Detour is a mobile app that gives you a personalized selection of five long-reads and slow-news every day. All the good and none of the bad: no login, email, or any personal information required for a great personalization experience.
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David Greenberg
I'd love to know more about the decision of not having a login. Interesting detail.
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@david_greenberg We are challenging the status quo. Companies normally collect way more data than needed in order to offer a personalization experience that is not even the best. We want to show people that you do not need to give up your privacy in exchange for a customized experience. Thank you for your comment :)
Hi! I am the CEO and co-founder at recsyslabs, the company behind Detour.
With the large amount of content out there, finding what is right for each one of us is not easy. Currently, in exchange for a personalized experience, we are often coerced into allowing our information to be collected excessively and for unknown purposes. And even after giving up our privacy, we are oftentimes dissatisfied with the current state of personalization.
We are purposely staying away from breaking news, we do not want to give you more of what you can find elsewhere. Instead, Detour’s focus is on long-reads and other articles that will keep your information diet balanced and interesting.
Detour enables you to discover content you love, without the need to login nor give up your personal information. Every day you will be shown five curated articles from a variety of sources and topics and, depending on the ways you interact with such articles, Detour will learn about your interests - not about your identity - and adapt so that the next day your experience will be even better and more tailored to your taste. You can always go back to check your history and you can also bookmark articles. Not liking the sort of articles you see? Just go to settings and start over :) we will learn from, and adapt to, your taste as many times as you like.
More sources? More topics? Yes, we are not done yet. We are working on including sources and topics to cater for everyone. It is still a work in progress, but I am really happy to bring Detour to you and hear your thoughts. We are here to answer any questions you may have :)
At recsyslabs (www.recsyslabs.com), we are working hard to shift paradigms. We know that recommender systems and personalization technology can be done right yet still offer people a great experience without violating their privacy. All the power of privacy-preserving personalization is packaged behind the scenes of Detour.
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There are two options to start using Detour right away:
Option 1 – PWA: https://bydetour.com/ this will launch Detour as a Progressive Web App (PWA) in your mobile using your browser. Tip: using "Add it to your Home Screen" option in your browser helps to keep it at hand
Option 2 – Android App on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/ap...
In this moment of crisis, I am really looking forward to accessing slow-news and good content. I also love the idea I do not have to login to read the stories. Well done!
@beth_jochim Thanks for the kind words. I hope you keep enjoying the app and that you find the content you are looking for :)
I love the entire feeling of opening and using the application, there are no intrusive pop-ups that take away my experience. No need for cookies or sign-ups so I know I'm in control of my data. Enriching features and moreover, the design is light and does not overwhelm me with too much or the usual content - just about right for someone wanting to read about things they love. I love the addition of bookmarks so I can go back to read some articles that might change every day. Looking forward to reading more interesting articles and seeing how the app personalizes my content every day.
@reshma_narayanan_kutty Thanks! We are happy you get that feeling of control, that is exactly what we are aiming for. Happy to hear you are liking the design too, we wanted to keep it simple yet functional.
Loving the app, I usually find myself going down the rabbit hole whilst trying to keep up with the articles I want to read. This is easy to use and instead of leaving me feeling tired and overwhelmed, it leaves me feeling I want more :D Maybe it is my age group, but I do find that the sources and content are of my interest
@melissa_martinez1 Thanks for your comment! I am happy that you find it easy to use and that you've had a good experience so far. That's exactly our goal, that instead of leaving people tired of getting too much content, they feel they could read more and happily come back the next day :)
This app is very refreshing, I like not having to login before start using it! I like the content and am looking forward to using it over the next days to see how it adapts to my taste.
@flor_orellana1 Happy that you like it! It is important for us to make it easy for people to use the app, no need to create an account, just start reading :)
@corellana,
An amazing app. It's a pleasant surprise that an android version's available as well :)
Product Hunt is notorious for being IOS centered.
Took a look at the webite. Is your plan to add various book lists over the long run (and rank on Google when people type keywords like "top X books for parents", for example?
@zerotousers Thank you for checking us out. Not at the moment, we are currently focused on slow-news rather than other type of reads. We will for sure evolve and see where we are headed next :)
Awesome idea. One of the challenges I think you'll find with this is sifting through all the BS news.
Basically anything that is published on a major ad $ driven site at this point is utter garbage. Medium is slowly transitioning into mostly low quality self promotional stuff as well.
@siamohajer Definitely. We have experienced this while curating sources to include. We are working toward exclusively including high quality and privacy-respectful sources that, like us, care about their readers. Thanks very much for your comment :)
@michaeldoucette1 Happy that you like it! Although at the moment the app is only available for install on Android, you can use the Progressive Web App (PWA): https://bydetour.com/ and have the exact same functionality in iOS :) Tip: using "Add it to your Home Screen" option in your browser helps to keep it at hand
An application that implements an ethical recommender system that respects the privacy of users with a great UX.
Well done.
@tothemoon_uy Glad you like it! Indeed, we are loving our whole look, it is elegant, yet simple and with all the functionality it needs :)
I like this app, it is very intuitive and easy to use. It shows me really interesting topics. I really like the fact I don't need to log in.
@benjamin_aguilar1 I am glad you find it easy to use :) I hope you keep finding interesting topics as you continue using the app. Thank you for your review!
I love the plug and play philosophy, download and use that's all I want.
p.s.: thanks for include toggle dark mode.
@walter_orellana I am glad you are enjoying Detour, we love the dark mode too :)