> Thoughts?

Yes, one: this idea has no chance. Also it's been tried. App.net, diaspora, etc. If there aren't any people there there's no reason to join. If you think your engineering buddies will be the catalyst, look how well that's turned out for Google+, and Google+ is made by Google and they forced it down millions of people's throats and it's still not being used by normal people. You think selling it as "it can't be banned in Turkey" is going to be appealing to many people?

This is how it's going to go down, you're going to make some minimal app, a few people will use it once and never check it again, then you get burned out and go back to fixing some problem in your day job.