[LeBleu]

But I don't see anything here that blocks the "check in" approach, if anything, it makes it easier to implement. Instead of needing to develop your own app for each mobile platform and using their location API, you just make a web page that asks for confirmation to access the user's Google Latitude location, and all you need to do is develop the interface for whatever human provided info you want. The location pick up is taken care of. (Of course, I don't know how this compares to just using HTML5 location APIs... perhaps that provides a better approach for check ins.)

The only problem I see with this is that, in my experience, Google Latitude 95% of the time tracks location by cell tower, which doesn't even narrow down which block you are on, much less which bar you are in.

[wdewind]

Now the user has to manage their privacy for a bunch of apps through Google's central server instead of the app itself, and the app now needs to talk to google as well - seems like kind of a drag to me. Extra moving part for dev, and for user kind of like having settings for a game in your system preferences, sure it works but it's a bit odd.

And the cell tower problem too, which I didn't know about.