Facebook only has to implement one feature to crush this startup. Facebook Circles. Allow you finer granularity than binary public/private posts. Take a photo, pick which circle you want it published to, caption, upload.
When we conceived Treehouse, we didn't say "let's create something super innovative and blow the world away", we asked "what if you could see a simple stream of your friend's mobile photos". We then decided to make a prototype and test it with a group of < 50 people. The results were astounding. People used it feverishly, and we're seeing the same exact behavior from our new users since the app has been in the store. Our user activity is growing extremely rapidly and engagement is through the roof.
It's not about innovation, it's about taking what is so blatantly obvious and making it possible. It's about addressing what people want. There's no good way to easily share photos that you take with your phone with the people that matter to you in a more intimate context.
Twitter was also a subset of a single Facebook feature.
-Not everyone has iPhones
-People are complacent with their current social networks, if not overwhelmed.
I don't have an iPhone, so I can't check it out but doesn't it work with any social networks users might be a member of? Just using Facebook/Twitter for member profiles and Treehouse just keeping track of who you give access to within Treehouse?
We will expand beyond iPhone to every platform as quickly as we can within reason. On that note, we're hiring! http://gotreehouse.com/jobs
One of our biggest challenges will be how to fuel adoption and overcome the initial hump. We know it will take time but we are very confident in what we're building, and we'll keep iterating on ways to make it extremely easy to get your friends involved.
Once a user has 5 of their friends active, engagement takes a big leap.
There's another article that talks more about the general space/problems here: http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/06/15/treehouse-facebook-...
Are you guys working on something else besides this app?
P.S. I'll update my profile
So, all this time, they've been concentrating on that and changed direction recently. (see last paragraphs of linked article and Crunchbase for more details)
Treehouse only has to add 1 feature to encompass all the useful functionality of Facebook, status updates without pictures.