Google Check-ins

Google has been maneuvering different parts of its mobile, local and social strategies posing a significant threat to other web businesses. Google has added the check-in capabilities to Latitude, the social and sharing feature of Google location based service Places.
Location based services let users share their locations with friends via mobile apps when the arrive at local businesses and establishments. Companies like Gowalla and Foursquare have their built their check-in services around social rewards such as badges and stamps. Users check in to Facebook Places, Shopkick and Loopt to receive deals from participating businesses, check-ins through apps from Yelp and others offer the platform for users to rate, recommend and review local restaurants and stores.
Google is the most widely used location based service ahead of Facebook Places. Google's new check-in feature gives users the added options of setting notifications and checking out from a location. Google has something else that the other location based services do not — the rapidly growing Android mobile platform. Though an iPhone
app for check-ins is said to be forthcoming, Google Places already has apps for the iPhone and Android devices that integrate with its other location-related services such as Google Maps and Navigation.
Google also has Hotpot local ratings and recommendations engine. So, users can share their locations with friends, rate and review local businesses all via Google's services and across all mobile platforms.
Google is also planning to launch its own entry in the daily deals space with Google Offers. Which brings us to Offer Ads, another mobile initiative of Google’s in which advertisers send coupons to users through email or SMS to drive customers into their physical store locations. For businesses that use Google Places to build awareness for their products and services, the convergence of these services creates the perfect storm of mobile, local and social marketing. Between check-ins, coupons, ratings and reviews, merchants have everything they need right on the Google
homepage — not to mention Google Analytics to gauge the individual performances of each service.