It’s been almost three years since we last caught up with Trover, the travel-focused photo app that counts Expedia and Zillow co-founder Rich Barton among its creators. Here’s what we had to say about it at the time:
“Trover is something special. It’s not necessarily a place to share photos, although the images populating the app are almost universally high quality. Instead, it uses photos as an anchor to help people share art, food, monuments, places, restaurants, cool locations and just about any other type of interesting thing that you might discover.”
It’s all about creating a sense that you’re walking through a neighborhood finding new things along the way. Users can (visually) share stories about their favorite hotels, restaurants, parks, swimming spots, and more. A geo-tagged, photo-based social network for curious explorers.
A few months after we last covered Trover, an Android app was launched, but due to resource limitations – “Innovating on two platforms was too costly for our small team” – work was halted on the Android incarnation, and it was finally retired.
“We pointed all of our innovation on iOS, to cover more ground more quickly, and perfect the social dynamics that operate inside of Trover,” explains Trover CEO Jason Karas. “The innovation on iOS paid off. With much higher social engagement on Trover, we decided we had product knowledge and we were ready to extend to the Android community.”
Yes, Trover has returned to Google Play, and it’s seeking to fuel Android users’ passion for exploration with user-generated geo-tagged photos, place-based tips, and shared travel stories. Just like its Web and iOS versions.
You don’t need an account to use Trover. You can search for places anywhere around the world by location – be it around the corner or 12,000 miles away. It’s like a social network for travelers, letting you find things when you arrive somewhere, or in advance.
You can browse photos not only by ‘new’, but also what’s hot. And you can manually search for geo-tagged photos in the ‘Jump To’ tab. But if you want to start posting photos, well, you will need to sign up for an account.
Though Trover has been around for a few years already, we recently covered a similar service called Findery, which comes courtesy of Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake. While both Trover and Findery (iOS and Web) occupy a similar space, the former’s arrival for Android is sure to serve as a huge boon for the service.
You can grab Trover from Google Play now.
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