I do think this is interesting both from a user and a marketing perspective. It's interesting that they're choosing to potentially reveal the deal AFTER a person checks in as opposed to before. If there are enough deals, revealing the offer after check in becomes a nice surprise, an insider's secret, a way of rewarding the loyalty of people who already shop there. As opposed to broadcasting deals before the check in, which would drive new business as well as repeat, but not make the current customers feel special. It would be interesting to see Facebook test the deal reveal both before and after check in and analyze the different behaviors that this drives.

Though as a user, I'd really like to be informed when there is a deal before deciding where to go and checking in. As a former Foursquare user, I grew bored quickly with the lack of incentive to check in to places. I get the basic appeal: 1) competition via gain/keep mayorships and 2) habits forming behavior. But it's just not fun enough or rewarding/incentivizing enough to do regularly. I removed the Foursquare app from my phone and rejoiced. Facebook, though, has my attention daily. It's more than checkins. So if you're prone to checking in, then Facebook already has the edge in that it offers more as a platform. If it can offer tangible rewards to check in on top of that, like deals or exclusives or something like that, then that makes the appeal of checking in even stronger. </my 2 cents>