Taylor

Taylor

Your personal travel assistant that tells you where to go

26 followers

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Taylor gallery image
Taylor gallery image
Taylor gallery image
Taylor gallery image
Launch tags:
Messaging•Robots•Global Nomad
Launch Team

What do you think? …

levelsio
Maker
I built this in a week for fun! 🎈 I started when @marckohlbrugge told me Telegram had published their Bot API (see http://www.producthunt.com/tech/...). I didn't really take it seriously but then I thought maybe I could make something that used Nomad List's data to tell you which 🌇 cities to go. That got out of hand 👻 and now it can do a lot more than that: You start with sharing your GPS location with it via chat. Then it can find ☕ coffee shops and 💻 coworking spaces near you, as well as 🏨 hotels and hostels. And it takes into account what kind of traveler you are, a budget backpacker, or more expensive expat. And makes recommendations based on that. Also it can tell you 🏃 people that are around you (based on other people chatting with Taylor). And then you can tap their username and chat to them instantly. In the last week, about 250 people used it. And @jmeistrich randomly met his American college friend in Slovenia through it! 😀 https://twitter.com/jmeistrich/s... I spent the whole week testing it with @emieljanson, @bramk and @marckohlbrugge on Telegram. I think they're totally sick of it now 🙈 In the future, I'd love to deploy it on Whatsapp and FB Messenger too, but their API is still closed I think! Also planned features are live push messages based on what's happening around you. All via chat because as @rrhoover says, interfaceless is the new interface.
Tom Masiero
@levelsio love the concept. I'm curious as to why you didn't try this via sms first?
Ilias Ism
@blendahtom @levelsio You get great features with Telegram like auto-complete or suggested answers. You get a lot of messages through the bot so that would be costly using SMS for both sides. That's my guess.
levelsio
Maker
@blendahtom @levelsio from what I know, most of the world doesn't use SMS anymore, US is a big exception since SMS bundles are free, but the rest of the world already switched to Whatsapp, Telegram, FB Messenger etc. I myself never use SMS (or voice for that matter). Everything I do on a smartphone is now data-only, so calling through Skype, messages through Telegram.
levelsio
Maker
@illyism @levelsio yes, that too, SMS costs money, this doesn't cost money
Eddie Pratt
@levelsio Hey, thanks for building and sharing :-) Looks really interesting. I've never used Telegram before. I clicked through on my Mac and was going to try it out. What happens to my phone number when I enter it in? Does that go into someone's database? Is it fundamental to the service working? Was a bit confused why it was needed on my laptop! Thanks and sorry if this is a dumb question.
Blaine Hatab
Since this is essentially just a virtual travel agency and there are a ton of travel agencies with qualified employees, I wonder how well a platform to help existing travel agencies expand their reach would do.
levelsio
Maker
@blainehatab I think you make a great point, Blaine. There's area here to mix automation and humans, I've just added a feature where users can ask Taylor to help them with custom paid requests at $50 per question. Inspired by @marckohlbrugge. I'm testing to see if that works first.
Mike Slagh
@levelsio that's a really interesting idea. Would payments be integrated in telegram as well?
levelsio
Maker
@mslagh @blainehatab I hope in the future @durov (the maker of Telegram) adds that. Until then having a simple payment link to a Stripe page would work. Then it confirms payment, and the bot gives you what you paid for.
Mike Slagh
@levelsio yup 💯. Interfaceless payments have a ways to come but it only seems a matter of time. why not in iMessage a la Fb Messenger? I want to be able to get talented people like you on demand, but I want it to feel like texting. I'd 💸 for that.
levelsio
Maker
@mslagh @blainehatab their APIs aren't open yet to do this, nor iMessage, nor FB, nor WhatsApp, hopefully soon
Irving Torres
This is great. Another phenomenal project by Pieter. The only downside is that Telegram (at least the web apps) are buggy for me. I got stuck on the location prompt. The native iOS app is great though. There's not a lot of info about San Diego, CA but I was able to get recommendations for places to go to based on my budget and preferences (pulls this info in from Pieter's other project, NomadLIst). Overall, this experience is really neat.
levelsio
Maker
@irvingtorresyc I think I fixed the location prompt now, you can enter cities now instead of sharing your location (Telegram's web app doesn't support location sharing yet). I'll keep sourcing more locations to work and sleep and improve that data. The quality of places is not where I want it to be yet, but at least the infrastructure to get that data to users is there now (through Nomad List and Taylor). It's just a matter of sourcing the right APIs to get this data and using algorithms to score them so I can show the best/nearest ones to users.