Mobile discovery and photo-sharing app Trover arrives on Android today, after having grown its install base to over 100,000 since its iPhone launch in July. The release extends Trover to a second mobile platform, but doesn’t include a new feature set or other notable changes at this time.
Currently, Trover offers integration with Facebook and Twitter for finding friends and sharing photos, but a future version will add Tumblr and Foursquare to its list of supported networks, we’re told.
Trover was created by Expedia and Zillow co-founder Rich Barton, Jason Karas and Andrew Coldham. It aims to provide a new way for people to explore their community via photo-sharing.
When you launch Trover on your mobile phone, it finds nearby photos and presents them in a grid-like layout. As you scroll down, the distance between your current location and the featured photos increases. You can also follow other users, including your Facebook and Twitter friends.
The app is attractive, well-designed, and easy to use, but since its first install on my iPhone, I have to admit that I haven’t often returned to check out new photos on any sort of regular basis. For me, and for a good many of my Facebook and Twitter friends I follow on the service, there’s been a drop-off in usage. Maybe it’s the power of Instagram, diverting our attention elsewhere, or maybe it’s just a general lack of stickiness in an increasingly crowded “photo-sharing” space.
Co-founder Karas acknowledges these challenges, but hints at upcoming features that will make the now entertainment-focused app more practical. One of these is the newly added keyword-based browsing (iPhone only for now) which lets you discover activities through searches. For example, a search for “kids” would pull up family-friendly discoveries. This feature will be further developed to include more helpful information like the URL of the location, the star ratings of the service and more in a future release.
Also planned is support for Foursquare and Tumblr integration, arriving in a month or two, which will allow users to check-in and/or share their photos on those services. Trover’s Facebook posting is being rethought as well, so as to allow for geo-tagging capabilities instead of simple photo uploads.
Trover is being honored today by O’Reilly Media as one of 15 mobile companies featured in its Startup Showcase at the Android Open Conference. The apps O’Reilly picked are meant to showcase some of the best new apps Android has to offer.
The new Android version of Trover is available now on the Android Market now.