Well, that was fast.

Just as features like user profiles, status updates, and friend graphs have become standard fare on social media sites, it appears that the social check-in will soon follow.

With the entrance of big fish like Yelp into the social check-in space, and the rumored entrance of even bigger fish like Facebook and Twitter, the social check-in seems to be progressing from differentiator to commodity.

Says Om Malik in the comments section of his interview with Josh Williams from Gowalla:

“I am still waiting for services like FSQ and GOW to come up with a value proposition that goes beyond checking in — which I believe is nothing more than a cool functionality for starters.”

And Marshall Kirkpatrick has this to say in ReadWriteWeb’s “The Era of Location as a Platform” post:

The mobile location “check-in” is fast becoming the hot new status message type online. It was only a matter of time until “where you are” became a platform to build added value on top of just like “who you know” has on social networking sites like Facebook.

And here is, uh, me from my “Is Social Location a Feature or a Business?” post:

I’m personally of the opinion that social location will, and should be, a feature on many existing sites.  Location adds context to many different web verticals – reviews, search, blog posts, photos, videos, etc.

And most credibly, here’s a snippet from a Business Insider article today:

For his part, Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley told us he fully expects Facebook and others to launch “check-in” functionality, making it “commodity by the end of the year.”  Dennis says Foursquare’s survival depends on providing “the most incentive for a user to check-in.”

Facebook can probably get away with offering a stripped down social check-in as part of its service, and Twitter will likely do so as well, relying on 3rd party developers to do the creative stuff.

But I expect to see lots of innovation from everyone else in the coming months in order to avoid being commoditized.  Already, it would appear that Gowalla might be moving towards the travel vertical with the introduction of  Trips – user generated bundles of various checkins by theme (bar crawl, museum tour, art gallery walk, etc.).

Foursquare was the early innovator in the social check-in + game dynamics, and I expect to see them continue to go down this road.

Yelp is clearly trying to use check-ins as a validator for its core review business – a review + check-in carries more weight than a standalone review.

What other social check-in mash-ups and angles will we see over the coming months?  Check-ins + news?  Check-ins + deals?  Check-ins + photos?  Check-ins for the enterprise?

There is growing evidence that there may be widespread consumer interest / comfort with sharing their location.

With that hurdle mostly crossed (thanks in large part to Foursquare), we should now be entering a fun stage of experimentation and innovation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• GigaOM Video: Gowalla CEO Josh Williams on Foursquare, Yelp & The Future of Location (gigaom.com)
• The Era of Location-as-Platform Has Arrived (readwriteweb.com)
• Look out, Foursquare! Gowalla adds trips and bookmarks (downloadsquad.com)
• Foursquare Rewards Social Networkers for Location Info (time.com)
• Yelp Brings Location Check-in Data to Its Web Reviews (mashable.com)