In addition to lists, which will help highlight individual users more, today's update also adds @-mentions and redesigns the news feed to be more about the people. Trover has positioned itself as a "browser" for places, but when you talk to CEO Jason Karas, you hear Trover is learning that people are part of those places. The new version of Trover is still about discovering places, but it provides the authentic flavor that only the local folks can offer.

World-Browsers Feel Like the Future

Trover (available for iPhone and Android) is in a category of apps that matters to me. So-called "browsers for the world" represent the future I dreamed about as a kid, where our devices are not difficult or distracting, they're seamless extensions of and enhancements to our daily lives. Using a smartphone to find cool stuff to see and do is one of the most natural kinds of computing I can imagine. This is what drew me to Trover when it launched.

But since then, another iPhone world-browser has drawn me in. I've been using Localscope, which I think is much closer to a "browser," per se, than Trover is. It's a sleek user interface to aid in locating things.

Localscope searches across virtually all major Web services that share location data, so you can click from Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare to Google Maps (and much more) until you find something interesting. It's got two modes, browsing and searching. It is to the physical world what, say, Chrome is to the Web.

Is Trover a Browser or a Guide?

Discussing Localscope and Trover with Jason Karas the other day, the differences stood out so starkly that I - presumptuous blogger that I am - suggested that Trover might not be a browser after all. It's more like a guide, and today's new features further enhance that side of it.

First of all, Trover makes it easy to share discoveries as well as find things discovered by others. It's a two-way experience. But also, Localscope is designed around efficiency, finding what you're looking for and putting the phone away. Trover is an immersion. You follow people, you find the experts and tastemakers in your area, and you learn to trust their tastes.

Check out Trover and see what's happening in your area. If there isn't much, be a pioneer. That was Karas' word. If you love where you live, and you're proud of it, sharing it on Trover can help new people find those local gems. And if you're somewhere full of great guides, Trover will help you get to know the place.

Going to SXSW? Trover Is.

As a bit of a "coming out party," as Karas called it, Trover is hosting a Discover East Austin Mobile PhotoWalk on Saturday, Feb. 18 as part of South by Southwest. It's hosted by local explorers, and participants will get a sense of the city they're in outside the confines of the huge conference.

SXSWi nominated Trover for a Community Award, and this fun extension of an app into the real world is a great demonstration of why. If you're going to South By, be sure to join the Trover tour.

What kinds of location-based apps do you use, and how do you use them?

"Play your world, like never before," is the promotion's slogan. It ends with a link to Google's new Start Here page for Google Maps, which offers a detailed walkthrough of the service. This gives Google a chance to show off all the new features of Maps, such as interior mapping and crowd-sourced map-making. If Facebook's history is any indication, one surefire way to drive social network eyeballs to something is to turn it into a game.

Google's first integration of Maps into Google+ came last September with the sharing of live maps and directions on G+. The game is more of an obvious promotional effort. The intersection of mobile, social and location services is Google's next big thing, and dedicated competitors like Foursquare are iterating quickly.

As an ad company, Google wants to control the end-to-end search for local places and businesses. That's why it's pushing its Google Places recommendations into Maps despite formidable, focused competitors in the space like Foursquare and Yelp. The next frontier is mapping inside locations, which Bing has worked on, as well as other single-minded start-ups.

The acquisition of Zagat gave Google a wealth of premium content to complement user-generated Google Places reviews. Google+ and personalized search are becoming Google's key signals for generating recommendations to users, but it won't hold a candle to Foursquare's recommendation power until it's widely adopted. Zagat reviews will give Google Places a bit of a boost, and they're prominently displayed in this game-based promotion.

Do you play games on your social networks?

In its announcement of Explore for the Web, Foursquare says its mission is "adding an 'interesting' layer to the whole world, tailored just for you." Foursquare Explore draws on the check-ins, tips, lists and interests of your friends to put a layer of "interesting" - which is apparently a noun at Foursquare - on a map. This is a challenge to Google Places and Maps, which is racing to add "interesting", but Foursquare's 1.5 billion check-ins give it a strong position.

When Foursquare recommendations launched in March, our Marshall Kirkpatrick called it Foursquare's Google moment. It was a Facebook moment, too; both Google and Facebook are trying desperately to get users to check in to places, so they can monetize the recommendations to users' friends.

Unlike the big kids on the playground, though, Foursquare is a mobile-first company, and that's where all its data comes from. Today's launch of Explore on the Web brings that wealth of information back to the desktop (and tablet).

Mobile-First Makes Desktop-Best

Foursquare has earned 15 million users so far. That's no Facebook. That's not even a Google+. But all the Foursquare users are there to check in and recommend places. That's a strong signal for a service like Explore.

This isn't the first desktop Web feature Foursquare has added lately. In November, the whole Foursquare website got a makeover, setting the stage for today's additional recommendation layer. That month, Foursquare also launched a save-to-Foursquare button for websites, allowing users to save places to their Foursquare to-do lists.

Google's Foursquare Moment

Google has been hurriedly adding these kinds of features, too. It acquired Zagat for a reservoir of professional place recommendations, and it's added lots of gee-whiz visual stuff to its desktop Maps interface.

In November, as Foursquare made its key desktop moves, Google started to turn the screws on Yelp, highlighting Google Places recommendations on Google Maps. But this is a very basic interface. It's not much of a threat to Yelp, let alone Foursquare, whose place recommendations are much more detailed.

Your (Fun) Homework Assignment

Reading about the features isn't as fun as actually exploring, so try Foursquare's homework assignment.

At foursquare.com/explore:

• Find a place to go to lunch today that you've never been before (hint: look for the 'I haven't been to yet' checkbox).
• Search for a nice spot to try out tomorrow night (try searching "fun," "romantic," or "Friday").
• Pick a city you've been wanting to visit (Chicago? Paris? Rio?) and look at our personally-tailored top picks for you there, based on your check-ins from your hometown.

Now try the same at maps.google.com. How did the experiences compare? Let us know in the comments.

ReadWriteWeb gets tips about new consumer-facing location apps every day. We like the futuristic whiz-bang idea of augmented reality, so we tend to write these up every once in a while. But geolocation apps have not yet caught on in consumers' minds. That's because most offerings focus on monetizing location, leaving the user interface as an afterthought. Today, I think that changed. I found Localscope, the first location app I've ever used that I think I'll use every day.

A Browser For the World Around You

Localscope is currently available for iPhone and webOS only. This is actually the launch of version 2.0; the app has been around for almost a year. Version 1 helped users find things nearby using publicly available geo data. It was a nice interface, but not a unique offering. Version 2.0 is much more than that. It's a browser for the world around you.

The app has three views: gallery, map and augmented reality. None of these interfaces is new to the market, although Localscope's UI design is striking.

But here's the difference: while a photo discovery app like Trover or a business finding app like Yelp can show you its own content through these same kinds of views, that's all it has. Localscope lets you toggle between whichever location-enabled service you want to find something nearby.

Localscope has both a search mode and a discover mode. When you choose a mode, it goes straight into the view you last used, and a scrolling list of services appears across the bottom. They include Panoramio, Google's map-based photo network, Instagram, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google and Bing, as well as the open-source service Wikimapia. Siloed services like Yelp are conspicuously absent.

Find What You're Looking For

The app will grab full location info, usually from Google, when you choose a place. But you don't have to search for a restaurant; you can just go find neat spots people have photographed on Instagram or tweeted about. That's the kind of exploration that drew me to Trover, but Trover is its own network, while Localscope searches across a bunch of different, more popular ones.

The best touch is the compass, though. You don't have to hold your phone up in the goofy augmented reality position. The app uses the phone's compass, and it displays the direction of the object you're looking for everywhere, even in the list view, using a floating compass icon. You can start walking right away. It never takes more than two or three taps to find something that interests you and start looking for it.

This is what I've been waiting for, a location app that isn't about gathering data from me, but about showing it to me. And having access to so many services means that the exact thing I'm looking for is bound to be in here somewhere, never more than a few slides and taps - and then a short walk - away.

Localscope is available in the iTunes Store for $1.99.

Do we need another app for recommending cafes and sushi bars to each other? No. But perhaps we should get rid of the older ones and keep Stamped. Its distinguishing feature is the lack of 5-star ratings. If you like something, you just stamp it with approval. Stamped is satisfying to use; there's no guesswork involved. With Google's voracious need for consumer data about local businesses, no wonder Google Ventures backed it.

Instead of just hoarding reviews, Stamped controls for the quality of its users to make its recommendations better. You only get 100 stamps to start off, and you get more depending on how popular your reviews are. "Review sites are cluttered with recommendations from people you don't know and don't care about," co-founder/CEO Robby Stein says. "We're focused on quality - only the people you trust recommending only what they truly like best."

The app is integrated with Google Places to pull up place data. It also has built-in OpenTable, Amazon, iTunes and Fandango support, so users can act immediately on their friends' recommendations. In other words, it's easy to act on the recommendations you find on Stamped.

There's attention to little details that goes a long way - for instance, you get to customize the color and gradient of your personal stamp. That seems silly, but it makes the list of stamps much easier to scan, and it gives you an emotional signal about the stamper in question. That's a neat little device, much more useful than trying to interpret what ✭✭✭½ means to a stranger.

Why Is Google Interested?

It makes sense that Google wants a stake in Stamped. Google has skin in the local recommendations game, and its current Google Places reviews use the same old 5-star rating system as its main competitor, Yelp. With its acquisition of Zagat, Google has secured the jackpot of professional-quality local business reviews, but it needs something distinctive to make user-generated recommendations more interesting.

Stamped's simplicity and focus on quality sets it starkly apart from the easily gamed recommendations on Yelp. It also couldn't be more different from the new Kevin Rose project, Oink, which is really complicated and makes scary pig noises. If you're unsatisfied with the state of recommendation apps, you might find that Stamped is the one that lets you delete the rest of them.

Which social recommendation apps do you use?

These new features push forward Google's efforts to be a one-stop-shop for mobile, location-based searches. From finding the restaurant to walking in the door, Google is building applications to compel smartphone users to use Google and only Google to find, shop and eat at local businesses.

In July, Google Places made its move and started pushing Yelp around on Google search result pages for restaurants and businesses, which feed into Yelp's core business. In September, the CEO of Yelp testified before the Senate that Google's practices around local businesses are anti-competitive.

Chairman Eric Schmidt replied that Google has plenty of competition, including from Yelp, thanks to its partnership with Apple. Siri, the new AI voice assistant on the iPhone 4S, bypasses Google for searches for local businesses, going straight to Yelp results. Apple is also buying companies who compete with other aspects of Google's local search business, including 3D mapping companies.

In the meantime, Google has acquired Zagat, publisher of restaurant reviews, in order to shore up the quality of its local business content. It has also seized control of the content of local business listings to ensure the quality of its search results.

What Web services do you use to find stuff to do in your area?

Other places in the search results have a ">>" symbol that instantly opens the same preview. The new layout and 3D features will come to restaurants, landmarks, museums, hotels and more. The features will roll out in more than 40 languages over the next few weeks. It's a flashy feature, but Google has its reasons.

Mapping the outside world is one thing, but mapping inside is new territory. Google isn't alone in the effort. Bing Maps reached for some low-hanging fruit this summer and mapped the inside of malls. There are startups like Meridian dedicated to bringing location services inside. But only the company that brought us Street View has made it to the point of instant photo tours of business interiors from inside normal Web search results.

Local businesses are a vital new part of Google's strategy, so much so that Google is taking charge of how businesses are listed, asking their owners for forgiveness rather than permission. Local businesses are the reason for some of Google high-profile acquisitions like Zagat, a restaurant review publisher. Between Zagat reviews and 3D photo tours on Google, what's Yelp to do?

Google is also pushing hard to make local business content mobile. Its new GoMo marketing campaign announced today pushes businesses to mobilize their websites. What would you do if you were browsing on your phone for a place to eat, searched Google, clicked through to a place and found that its website looked horrendous on your phone? Google has found that, 61% of the time, you won't return to that site ever again.

How Does Google Monetize It?

All these scenarios are important to Google because they represent valuable local advertising space. Google has rearranged its whole AdWords program to encourage mobile content, and it has put the +1 button on mobile ads.

But Google needs more out of local businesses to justify these fancy new user experiences. One concerted effort to monetize local business is in daily deals. Its acquisition of The Dealmap, a local offers aggregator, will help Google motivate consumers by putting bargains on the map. The new confederacy of daily deals providers on Google Offers will widen its coupon inventory. The other key component is Google Wallet, the nascent NFC mobile payment system. This will close Google's loop on helping users find, choose and pay local businesses.

There are huge adoption hurdles to getting NFC into every phone and every store, and daily deals are a pretty grim business for providers and local businesses alike. But Google can afford to experiment; no one can compete with photo tours of real-world places. Yet.

Do you like these new photo tours, or is it just eye candy?

Google touts this as a convenience and points out that a business owner can quickly log in from the email and correct any erroneous changes. But this is sort of a strange update. Google Places listings are an important way for businesses to be discovered from Web search, and business owners might not be partial to those listings updating without their expressed consent. Then again, some might feel that maintaining Google listings is a hassle, and this update will save them the effort.

This update indicates that Google needs tighter control over the information in its business listings. It's hard to spin an update that takes control out of business owners' hands as a good thing. Local businesses are an important strategic part of Google's expansions into local and mobile revenue streams, and imposing automatic updates on those listings is an aggressive play.

It's worth noting that this part of Google's business is under scrutiny for anti-competitive practices. Yelp, Google's most celebrated competitor in local business listings, testified in Washington against Google for scraping Yelp's content for its own purposes and pushing Yelp results out of the way.

Google is pushing hard to control this market. It bought Zagat to get better content about local businesses, it bought Dealmap to push against Groupon on local deals, and it's using Android to close the loop and get businesses on board with Google Wallet NFC payments.

What's the rush? Well, Google rules search for now, but Apple just shipped a record number of iPhones loaded with an artificially intelligent search assistant called Siri. Location - and thus mobile devices - is an essential part of connecting consumers to local businesses, and Siri is the most convenient way to make that connection on the new iPhone. Guess what: Siri uses Yelp.

Are you a business owner? What do you think of the change? Does it make your life easier, or would you prefer to have control?

"Most of the apps out there today that are location-specific are delivering lists of content back to the user," says CEO Jason Karas. "We feel that exploring a space is not really done best through lists, that it's done through information that's organized in a spatial way. You can literally stroll around with our UI and take in the neighborhood just like you would when you're walking around."

Trover has been available on iPhone since July, and anyone can browse discoveries on a big screen at Trover.com. "The app hasn't changed much in its functionality since we launched in July," says Karas, "but we've been working like crazy getting Android online because our community is asking for it. They want to share with friends who aren't iPhone users."

Trover reports that over 100,000 users in 160 countries have downloaded the iPhone app, and its next goal is to grow to scale with Android. "It's such a social application," says Karas, "and the ability for more folks to use it is what really gets the flywheel spinning."

Social Is Just A Vector

As the iPhone app has gained traction, Trover has attracted a certain kind of user base. Karas calls them "hyperlocal influencers." These are users with very specific tastes and expertise who gain a following on Trover based around their interests.

But while following others is one way to discover things on Trover, one of the app's distinguishing features is its emphasis on the content itself rather than the users who created it. While other apps in the space like Yelp or Foursquare emphasize friends and personal achievements in order to drive participation, Trover just treats the social Web as "a vector" to help more users discover the real-world places shared on the network.

"We are a social network for sharing discoveries," Karas says, "but what we're sharing is not 'me and where I am.' What we're sharing is something that I've found."

Next Steps: Keywords, Tablets and Kitchen Tables

Karas says that keyword-based browsing is coming to Trover in the next few weeks. Currently, Trover use centers around spatial browsing, using the map interface to see whatever is around. Keyword browsing will allow users to filter for certain kinds of discoveries, like sushi or graffiti art.

After getting Trover onto all smartphones, Karas looks forward building to native tablet apps for iPad and Android. These will be more focused on the browsing aspect of Trover, "like when you're sitting in your living room or at the kitchen table," Karas says. "It will be more like the experience you see on Trover.com today where the images are sized according to their popularity."

"We think that the handset is the primary tool that you should use to go capture these discoveries," Karas says, "but why not also let people explore their neighborhood, or even another country, from the comfort of their computer?"

Download Trover for Android or iPhone today (it's free), or explore existing discoveries straight from Trover.com

The Google local apps are still relatively barebones compared to dedicated competitors like Yelp and Foursquare. Even recent additions to Google's dominant Maps tools haven't made it to mobile yet. But this acquisition, along with Google's purchase of The Dealmap last month, reveal Google's hand in the local recommendations game, and it looks like a flush.

In addition to the Dealmap acquisition, Google has pushed a handful of updates to various products this summer that make a lot of sense in light of this new announcement. Google Maps got improvements like easily shared shortlinks, and just yesterday Google announced a big expansion of its Offers program, which could prove a nice complement to its robust new ability to recommend restaurants. Savvy competitors like Foursquare have braced themselves with new features, but this content acquisition will make Google into an 800-pound gorilla of local recommendations.

The question is: Does Google play fair in local recommendations?

The lockers, which come in several sizes, are located on a wall in a 7-11 convenience store in Seattle surrounding an ATM-like device that allows a customer to key in a PIN and pick up their Amazon package.

We don't have Amazon's confirmation, but it is quite possible that by installing these boxes in convenience stores, Amazon will allow customers to pick up anything that Amazon sells, including books or food.

Amazon is the latest online company to offer services usually offered by shrinking government institutions and to create solutions, a trend spotted in the United States and elsewhere.

Email has for years clawed away at real world mail delivered by carriers dressed in blue uniforms. Now, Amazon is jumping into the increasingly large gaps opening in a U.S. Postal Service whose effectiveness continues to be compromised by increased costs and declining tax revenue.

In fact, it is at the brink of default; it is likely the Post Office will miss a payment of $5.5 billion to the U.S. government on Sept. 30, and the Postmaster General has threatened that the service will need to close 3,700 local offices and fire 120,000 employees.

We have put in a request for more information about the locker system in Seattle and what it will mean for the company as a whole. We will update when we know more.

In addition, only 8% never buy local deals, up from 28% who said they never buy them just a few months ago.

Still, that describes a large swath of the Internet-connected U.S. population today, and especially those participating in the local deals space. Simply put, the trends occurring within this audience are notable for the deals industry.

Increased Sharing

Since Q1, JiWire found that sharing local deals is up 21%. Now, 75% of the on-the-go audience are sharing deals regularly, the company says. The most popular way to share deals is email (35%), but word-of-mouth (19%) and Facebook (18%) are also regularly used.

Demand for Deals Up, Too

Demand for deals has also increased over last quarter, says JiWire, with 28% of consumers now buying deals once per month, up from 20% in Q1. As noted above, only 8% say they never buy deals, a decrease from 28% a few months ago.

Women Prefer Less Expensive Deals than Men

78% of people spend an average of less than $50 on local deals these days, but when comparing trends between the male and female audiences, there are some differences. Women are more likely to spend less than $25 on deals, JiWire notes, while men will spend $25 to $50 on a deal.

Image credits: Lead image, Hudson Horizons; Charts: JiWire

This acquisition is sure to have interesting implications for Microsoft, who have been partnered with The Dealmap for their competing Bing Deals service.

Google, the giant that it is, doesn't have to worry about scale, but it is moving against entrenched competitors, such as Groupon, LivingSocial and Foursquare, who have been solely devoted to building these capabilities all this time. Google is building these applications slowly, one piece at a time, and there's no clear path to adoption for users. Google users already see bits and pieces of these services across various applications, but there's no starting point as obvious as a Groupon email landing in one's inbox.

Google has acquired other startups working on local business this year, such as TalkBin, a mobile service that lets users communicate with local businesses in real time. Whether that was an acquisition for talent, technology or both, it's clear that Google wants a wide range of options for how to proceed in this space. What will that look like on the user end?

Google Maps is a natural place to integrate deals into location searches, but how do Latitude check-ins play in? How will these services integrate into Google Plus, which does currently feature location check-ins, but in a sparse and half-finished way, especially on iOS? Google's whole business is built on precisely-targeted advertising, but Google ads come at users from all directions as they navigate between the various Google services. The Dealmap would make a welcome addition to local searches for shopping or restaurants, but it only addresses part of Google's relationship to local businesses and their customers.

Though Trover is a photo-sharing app, it is organized for exploration, not just for browsing images. Don't think Instagram; Trover's roots within Seattle-based travel startup Travelpost are apparent. Trover shows what's around you to help you explore the place.

Location is the main feature, but you can also narrow down discoveries chronologically, and you can browse and follow other user profiles, too. There's a re-share button to send interesting discoveries to your followers, along with a note. There's also a 'Featured' tab that shows curated highlights.

This app is more reminiscent of Banjo than Instagram or other sites that are primarily about creating content. Trover, like, Banjo, is about exploring. Banjo pulls in social media posts from all around you and lets you browse them on a map, much as Trover does for photos. These social apps are more about connecting with the world (and people) around you than about broadcasting to the whole Web.

The app is available for iPhone users, with an Android version coming in the fall. Anyone can log in and view content on trover.com. Existing users can post Trover invitations via Facebook or Twitter.

Until now, TopGuest's business model involved awarding points (e.g. hotel points and other travel rewards) for checking in at one of the company's 15,000 partner places, mainly hotels and airports. But TopGuest Apex will reward users with points for checking in to their favorite local businesses.

Hilton HHonors points for going to the gym and Starbucks? Exactly.

TopGuest: Get Travel Rewards Points for Your Check-Ins

To use TopGuest, you just connect the service with your account on Facebook, Foursquare or Gowalla, all of which allow users to "check-in" (register their location) at a venue. You can also announce your location by posting a geo-tagged photo using the iPhone app Instagram or posting a location-tagged tweet to Twitter.

The genius of the system is its simplicity - beyond the initial setup, which also involves associating your current travel rewards programs with your TopGuest account, there's nothing more to do. You don't have to use a separate app, you don't have to use hashtags on Twitter or follow a particular account, you don't have to "like" anything on Facebook...you don't have to do much of anything, really, besides sharing your location using your preferred service, whether Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter or Instagram.

TopGuest Apex: A Loyalty Program for Local Merchants

The new program, TopGuest Apex, now doles out those same loyalty points to users who visit their favorite local merchants, instead of just hotels and airports as before. For each check-in, points are awarded and automatically deposited in a user's account. For example, as a new Apex member, I'm now receiving 50 HHonors points every time I buy diapers at Babies R Us, go for a run at my local gym or do my grocery shopping. (Yes, I'm boring.) Your top check-in spots, of course, would vary.

The end result is a completely personalized rewards program for each user. And unlike with Groupon, there's nothing for merchants to do - the points come from TopGuest's partnerships and integrations with many of the largest loyalty points programs in the world, with a reach of now 170 million program members.

The Groupon Model is Not for Everyone

"Driving loyalty is a huge pain-point for local merchants," says Lewis, noting that many startups are now trying to offer small to medium-sized merchants similar programs. One such startup, Punchd, makers of a digital version of customer loyalty punch cards (buy 10, get 1 free, e.g.) was just acquired by Google this past week. Others, like FiveStarCard and Perkville are still operating independently.

But the problem with these programs is that mom-and-pop shops often don't see the value in loyalty programs until after they see the results, which takes time. That's one reason why Groupon has an edge - businesses get immediate results, as a herd of discount shoppers descend on their business. But there has been much debate about how many of those Groupon-wielding customers will ever return to the business afterwards. In fact, a study released in June found that less than 15% of customers came back a second time after the Groupon was over. That's even lower than the findings reported last October in The Wall St. Journal, which cited Groupon's own research pointing to 22% of users becoming repeat customers.

Private Beta Invites

TopGuest Apex has just launched into a private beta, with Hilton HHonors as the only participating loyalty program for now, but the company is in talks with other partners, who are "excited" about the service. Over time, TopGuest will grow beyond just travel rewards, to sign deals with other types of merchants, like restaurants, shops and banks.

With the wealth of social data the company has on its members from their social networking connections, a future iteration of Apex may allow paying merchants more customization options, like the ability to precisely target more influential customers, encourage new behavior patterns and more. Other features are planned, too, which Lewis can't talk much about, only saying that it's a much bigger vision they have for Apex than what we see today.

Want to tryTopGuest Apex? Send a tweet to @topguest to be added to the invite list.