Instagram Hits 80 Million Users, Loses Access To Part Of Twitter API

Instagram, the social photo-sharing site that Facebook bought earlier this year for about $1 billion, says that it’s now crossed the 80-million-user level. That user base has also shared nearly four billion photos, the company says.

But those users will find a slightly less functional mobile app when they upgrade to the latest version.

As TechCrunch is reporting, the “Find Friends” tool no longer supports Twitter. A user clicking the button to find friends via Twitter gets a pop-up message that, according to TechCrunch’s screenshot, says:

Unable to Find Friends

Twitter no longer allows its users to access this information in Instagram via the Twitter API. We apologize for any inconvenience.

It’s unclear why Twitter would turn off Instagram’s API access for this feature. TechCrunch reports that API access is still available for Instagram’s “Tweet Photo” feature.

Twitter has promised to tighten is API access rules, and removing the ability to auto-publish tweets to LinkedIn was one casualty of that decision.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for clarification on this, but have not had a reply yet. We’ll update this article if/when we learn more.

Postscript: Twitter has issued this statement in response to our inquiry:

We understand that there’s great value associated with Twitter’s follow graph data, and we can confirm that it is no longer available within Instagram.

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Instagram | Social Media Marketing | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues


About The Author: is Editor-In-Chief of Marketing Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the US. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog.

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn


SMX - Search Marketing Expo

Marketing Day:

Get the top marketing stories daily!  

Like This Story? Please Share!

Other ways to share:

Like Our Site? Follow Us!

Subscribe to Our Feed! Join our LinkedIn Group Check out our Tumblr! See us on Pinterest Get Marketing Land on your mobile device!
 

Read before commenting! We welcome constructive comments and allow any that meet our common sense criteria. This means being respectful and polite to others. It means providing helpful information that contributes to a story or discussion. It means leaving links only that substantially add further to a discussion. Comments using foul language, being disrespectful to others or otherwise violating what we believe are common sense standards of discussion will be deleted. You can read more about our comments policy here.

Comments are closed.

Get Our News, Everywhere!

 
  • Advertise With Us
 

Learn a lot from reading Marketing Land and Search Engine Land? Attend our conferences!

Our SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences for internet marketers, whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting out.

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event: