Last year I predicted the location aware services and promotions were going to be a driving force in social-networking and mobile services in 2011. A prediction many tech bloggers are now disagreeing with ever since facebook last week announced that they were ditching the facebook places option.

Firstly facebook have started ditching a number of features that just weren’t adding to their core business. Secondly facebook recently partnered with skype to bring video chatting capabilities right within their site. Could this be the start of facebook focusing on the core and partnering to bring other features.

Either way facebook dropping it’s check-in function isn’t a big deal there are a number of applications out their that let you check-in and share your location on social networking sites. I also don’t think this is the last we will here about check-ins on facebook, it will come back.

Currently Foursquare is the most widely known location-based check-in service with over 10 million users and boasting 3 million daily check-ins. The service has been continually evolving adding more and more features. Based on your check-in location you will be notified of special offers nearby, anything from free drinks to meals and more.

I believe over the next 12 months we will see check-ins become more mainstream as they become more integrated with our activities, for example you purchase an event ticket which gets sent to your smartphone, it provides you with a special pre-event offer which is unlocked when you check-in and then you use it to gain entry at the event and you are automatically checked-in. With all this being shared on your social-networking sites.

Where do you think the check-in is heading?