Travel app Trover makes its Android debut

Trover, the snappy mobile app aimed at letting travelers share photos of their off-the-beaten-path discoveries, now comes in an Android version.

Since Trover is only as good as the content its users contribute, expanding to Android is key. The Seattle-based company launched as an iPhone-only application in May 2011, and even though it has a web-accessible offering at Trover.com, it’s hard to beat the speedy experience of a native mobile app. Since lots of people have Android phones, the amount of activity and content on Trover now stands to get a significant boost.

Screenshot of Trover for Android (click to enlarge)

Trover is not the only app to join the Android party lately: Recent weeks have seen the debuts of Flickr for Android, Hipmunk for Android and word that Instagram’s Android offering is on the near-term horizon.

Trover for Android works just like the iPhone app: It allows users to take photos of things they’ve seen and places they’ve been and share them with friends and neighbors. Entries are automatically geo-tagged to the location in which the photo was taken and overlaid onto a map. Essentially, Trover CEO Jason Karas says, the app aims to catalog the little “discoveries” and hidden gems people find when exploring a certain place — whether it’s a foreign city or their own hometown.

Even though talk about social media fatigue has picked up recently, Karas tells me that Trover is more popular than ever: Its user base has nearly doubled since I last covered the app, in late July. The company now has more than 100,000 users in over 160 countries. The company is still small — around six full-time employees — and has yet to start making money (its apps are free). Karas says he is currently focused on growing Trover’s user base and will work on generating revenue later on.

Trover is backed with a portion of the $ 9.8 million invested in TravelPost, the Seattle-based company from which Trover spun out. Trover’s investors include General Catalyst Partners, Ignition Partners and Benchmark Capital.

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