I believe social check-in is here to stay and is just in its infancy. It's a matter of not having reached critical mass / widespread adoption that is holding it back, and to a lesser degree, that its full potential uses haven't been honed in. If we could flip a switch and have 75% of our friends and merchants on board and NFC payment abilities ubiquitous, I think it would a certainty that social check-in would be integral to life. You walk down a street and with very little hassle know where your friends are (ones who permit sharing with you), know where the best deals are, and when you pick a place, you save money and pay easily, as well as coordinate with your social circle more easily. Right now, there are many more hoops than that. You have to check in, you are unlikely to have many friends in your network who are nearby and conveniently located, and it is more of a search-and-find operation to find ways to save money and pay.

Absolutely; that's referred to as "branding". Branding is really just a way of saying "marketing with the intent of getting someone to spend more later instead of now". By having TopGuest encourage location sharing, it certainly helps "brand", but not nearly to the extent that it generated real revenue increases later. I might occasionally notice that a friend had checked into a particular property, but the odds that would actually cause me to spend money at that property down the road was slim to none. The marketing needs to be much more direct and tied to performance. For example, offering people a substantial rate discount if they check in within 24 hours of your friend (same could apply to restaurants, etc.)