The biggest boost is the addition of what Triposo CEO Douwe Osinga described to me as “opinion mining.” The company’s founders are ex-Googlers and earlier iterations of the Triposo apps showed a very Google-like approach to judging the importance of sights – if the algorithms picked up that a lot of people were photographing a particular monument, they judged that it must be important. Now they also search texts written about the sights or facilities in question, analyzing the sentiments that previous visitors have expressed.

“We started tracking social mentions in a number of social sites and used that to come up with a much better measure of what is the best place to have coffee in a city, for example,” Osinga told me. “If you look up what is the best place based on the star ratings of users, [it can be] influenced by naysayers more than fans. If one guy is a bit rude then their star rating won’t necessarily be high. Instead, we do text analysis of what people say about these places and correct for these things.”

Speaking of reviews, Triposo is now also integrated with the Yelp API so users can check out star ratings from that service. Users can also now share tips and pictures with each other more easily, as well as organizing records of their own trips.

The other big change is to do with Triposo’s maps. Despite being headed up by a bunch of ex-Googlers, the company has always used OpenStreetMap, largely because Google Maps doesn’t offer offline access – a total must for those roaming abroad – through its API. OpenStreetMap also boasts more detailed coverage than its Googlish counterpart in certain countries, such as the U.K. and Germany.

However, Triposo previously rendered its maps using in-house technology. Now it’s opted for Skobbler’s GeOS toolkit, which has apparently resulted in faster rendering, as well as a smaller footprint for the overall app. In a way, it’s surprising that the Triposo-Skobbler tie-in took this long to materialize, as both companies are based in Berlin.

On that note, Skobbler also claimed in a release on Wednesday that GeOS, which is still in private beta for now, is seeing “significant interest… from a number of companies, including leading brands in both the travel and automotive space.”

Osinga said the Android versions of the guides would be updated at some point down the line. “We first spearhead our features on iOS and, when we have a good understanding and know how our users like it, we also port it for Android,” he said.

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We’re kicking things off with an app that’s part of a category very near to my heart: travel. This week I take you on a quick trip with Triposo, a free app for the iPhone. It’s a location-based app that has travel guides available for 8,000 locations around the world. I tried out Triposo during a recent weekend excursion. Here’s what I found.

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It’s how many people travel these days. Now Triposo has updated its travel guide app for iOS and Android  to 2.0 and brought in some smart ideas about how travelers can make the most of their iPad and smartphone while traveling. The company, started by some ex-Googlers, first made noise last year with its downloadable guides, which provide smart algorithm-based suggestions based on the time of day, weather, local business hours and other information.

Now with 2.0, users get a new iPad interface that allows them to bookmark places that they’d like to visit, which can be synced to their iPhone or Android. Then, when a user heads out and consults their downloadable guide on their smartphone, they can see what places they’ve bookmarked. They can then weigh those plans against new suggestions from Triposo based on where they are and what might be good for that time of the day and weather. That’s something I was missing on my last trip using my combination of notes and downloadable maps.

Triposo 2.0 also includes a new travel journal feature that lets you check-in to a location, associate pictures with a place and jot down notes, all while offline. Then when you return to Wi-Fi connectivity in your hotel, you can see your daily journal on Triposo’s website and share it out to Facebook. It’s a nice way to remember where you’ve gone and what you saw there.

I chatted with Richard Osinga, one of the co-founders of Triposo about the upgrades to 2.0 and he said it was about addressing the ways that people really travel today. So many people now tote iPads when they go on the road, but they don’t like to carry them while out on the street, instead relying on their smartphone.

“This release is about bringing together these two devices, which have different roles,” he said. “The new interface gives you a way to find the coolest things around you, which you take on your phone. Then we’ll suggest more things on your path.”

Triposo, which launched last year, has been on a roll and now has 3 million downloads. The company was started by Osinga, along with his brother Douwe and Jon Tirsen, who were part of the Google Wave team in Australia until the project was abandoned. The Berlin-based company is going up against a number of competitors, from traditional guides like LonelyPlanet and TripAdvisor to social travel startups like Gogobot and local exploration services like Foursquare. It took on $3.5 million in funding from InterWest in July. Chris Sacca, Google Wave co-founder Lars Rasmussen and Crunchfund put in $800,000 into Triposo’s seed round. 

Richard Osinga said Triposo is trying to make its mark by building a product made for real-world travelers, taking into account the limitations and behavior patterns of users. Ultimately, he said Triposo is trying to make a travel guide that’s as smart as the devices running them.

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