Some interesting things were happening over at Facebook headquarters last week as Instagram drastically reduced the number of API calls their developers can make by 96%, from 5,000 calls per hour to 200 calls per hour.
While this may sound arcane or irrelevant, it is important to any marketers that are using third-party apps to post to social networks or to get data out of social networks. These platforms use API calls to get the data in and out of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Data that marketers are using for social targeting, channel analysis, posting and more.
What's puzzling about this recent news is the fact that this happened very quickly and quietly. There has been no comment from Instagram at this point, no documentation to indicate a change, and this update has already broken many apps, indicating that there may be a bit of chaos going on behind the scenes at Facebook headquarters in response to the Cambridge Analytical data debacle.
Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify in front of Congress this week, so these updates might be related in an effort show he's making some major changes for the better. But in the meantime, we should prepare for even more rapid changes to roll out in regards to how Facebook is treating data and treating the interchange between itself and third parties.
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