I think they were also hoping to get some eyeballs on their brand name by having people check in for the points, and having all of their friends see the check in. Having your friend check in at Holiday Inn more often than usual means that the hotel gets (almost) free advertising, and also implies that your social network friends are fans of the brand.

However, with either goal, I never understood what UA/CO stood to gain by just having people check in at an airport.

I was always worried about going overboard and getting my account shut down, so I took it slower than many people here and made sure the check ins looked as realistic as possible, but still managed to pull in almost 10k points total over the three programs I was targeting. Not bad for a few seconds a day.

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.)

Any chance that TG gets the BW and WDM back some day later?

Chance? Sure. Likely? Not very. If they liked the results they got the first time around they would've renewed.

Can't log in with my facebook account today. Had to dig up the email/password I used to sign into topguest. Wow it looks like the whole company is falling apart.

Why would this surprise you, given that they can't turn a profit?

OK, Wingate is no longer listed as a participant.
But the crawler on the TopGuest home page is showing people getting 50 points for checkins at Wingates. Like right now.
Same pattern happened when Hamptons were dropped, and when Best West was dropped. Administrative lag, I suppose.

maybe i should double up on checkins before the cards collapse

I thought United came the closest to monetizing the check ins. We (husband and I) got emails advertizing car rentals, restaurants or shops in the airport. Maybe the hotels should have been doing that-sending happy hour vouchers or something.

I am still trying to figure out how Topguest made their money. Did they buy and resell miles/points or just provide the software as they appeared to do for UA?

I think the hotels did gain a lot of new accounts with this promo they wouldn't normally have gotten and they now have a lot of new emails to send their promos to which deal with booking rooms.

Does anyone know how much longer PC, Doubletree and Virgin have left on their contracts?

People hear "social media" and think that because it is popular it must be profitable. Like any other business, you need a business model that works. Geo-checkin services have a huge future, but not in the manner TopGuest imagined.

double tree check ins have not posted in the last 3 days, anyone else having this issue?

Topguest - additional points for checkins
 

No, my DT check-in for today has already posted.

Me...but maybe it's a fluke and they'll start posting again, my IHG checkins are posting fine.

Hilton has not been posting for a lot of people for months. I'm curious as to how you even are getting Hilton to post. Do you actually physically check into a Double Tree via GPS? Or remotely?

For Hilton you need to simply email topguest and mention that your points aren't flowing to your Hilton account. You will likely see the points in your topguest account if you log in to check. I emailed and my points posted within 24 hours along with a very nice email from topguest. Too bad it's falling apart, their customer service is quick and responsive.