Google maps/latitude/places checkin misses a big point. The post below nails its problems and the underlying of repurposing maps data as opposed to 4sq's freestyle place creation. Case in point: both in 4sq and Facebook places have loads of people checkin to the local beach - on Google Latitude the beach does not exist nor can I create it. So Google has missed an entire use-case (social connection at non commercial properties).
More important to note is the number of checkins at the beach far outnumbers ALL the checkins for local businesses - including a pub!
So putting aside if checkins are useful or just a fad - Google would be advised to think of use cases that help the user - not just Google "local" revenue plans.
One approach would be to drop checkin metaphor and do friend-proximity alerts like Whereoscope.
Heres the post:
http://blog.arhg.net/2011/02/will-check-in-latitude-embarrass-google.html?m=1
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