If you’ve ever taken an audio tour at a museum, you’ve experienced firsthand how cool it is to have technology pinpoint your location and push information about what’s around you to enhance the experience.
This is the service that the technology company Detour peddles with its eponymous platform. And last week, the San Francisco–based start-up opened the platform to the public.
According to founder Andrew Mason, the move was as much for developers as it was for laypeople who enjoy geeking out about travel. He adds that with more than 150 tours across nearly 20 cities, Detour decision-makers felt the time was right to open the technology to the world.
“We’ve always thought Detour would be more interesting as a platform for anyone [who] wants to create location-based audio,” Mason told AFAR. “There are incredible secrets on every street corner of every small town in the world; our hope is that the people who know these stories will use Detour to tell them.”
The move means that Detour is giving free access to Descript, its app for content producers that combines mapping, writing, and audio production into one tool. An easy-to-use tutorial wiki walks users through precisely how to use the tool, but for those who still need help with sound design, voice-over recording, and editing, the same professional team that developed the company’s premium Detours for the likes of SFMOMA, Airbnb, and Gettysburg National Military Park is available to help produce a masterpiece. (Yes, the consulting work does actually cost money.)
Once the Detours are done, users can publish them for free and the tours will appear on iOS, Android, and the company’s website. Mason said that users can give their tours away free or charge any price they want and keep all the revenues after the App Store’s cut.
