Google makes Foursquare/Gowalla Check-in lookalike.

Google has finally hopped onto the check-in bandwagon, but with extra twists that make it more appealing than many of the other options.

Numerous other companies—Facebook, FourSquare, Gowalla, Yelp, BrightKite, Foodspotting etc.—also allow users to check in and share photos of the businesses they are patronizing, and people have already flocked to one (or more) of those services. Google is stepping up to the challenge, though, by making it painfully easy to check in through Latitude.

One of the main problems with check-in services is that they usually rely on the user to remember to check in whenever he or she enters a place—Google is addressing this by either letting users' phones automatically check in for them, or sending notifications to users to remind them to check in when the app detects that they have arrived somewhere.

Facebook's check-in service, also called Places, already lets businesses give discounts to users when they check in, so the idea isn't entirely novel. Still, Facebook implements it differently than Google probably would—the combo of Groupon-style "deal of the day" with location-based check-ins would at least differentiate Latitude from its competition