Also you are using the same videos from ThinkVitamin which provide good introductory knowledge and that's it.
Codeacademy makes you actually code and had badges long before you guys.
"LARRY PAGE this is lame in that it's a crummy featureless version of http://www.yahoo.com
You are using the same internet to search on.
Yahoo makes you actually log into a nice portal and had search capability long before you guys."
Just because there's a competing product in the marketplace doesn't devalue what Ryan's doing here.
In fact, I think Treehouse is already outstripping Codeacademy on breath of education and video quality.
Who cares...no one really cares about badges anyway...except of course, VC's, who are already out of touch.
Badges have been around in video games and educational games for a while and Rails for Zombies already used them.