Instagram Cuts Off Social Startup Tiiny From 'Find Friends' API Access

Tiiny, the new social media app from Digg-founder Kevin Rose, has just lost access to Instagram's social graph, meaning users on the former can no longer easily find and connect with their friends from the later. The simplest, and most logical, reason for this is that Instagram views Tiiny as a possible growing threat to its dominance, and doesn't want to give it a free leg up in the ever-competing social network market.

The quick rundown on Tiiny is that it works like a mishmash of Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat. Users can post photos and brief, looping videos, 'like' others' posts, and content disappears after 24 hours. When new users sign up, they have the common option of signing in with Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to see if friends from said networks are already on Tiiny, or get suggestions of other new users to connect with.

This is where Instagram has put their foot down, asking Tiiny to remove its authentication access. Tiiny has respected the request, but they nor Instagram has commented on the change. As of now, Tiiny can still allow users to connect to Twitter's social graphs, as well as those on Instagram-owning Facebook.

As TechCrunch puts it so well, social networks today must play the game of politics. Tiiny users were able to connect with and maintain their social graphs from Instagram, but there was no way for content on Tiiny to be cross-posted or exported to Instagram. In other words, the benefits were a one-way street in favor of Tiiny, and Instagram wasn't having any of it. Facebook has been known to do the same to platforms that don't bring back content to users' News Feeds, so we'll have to see if Tiiny is allowed to keep Facebook authentication, or if the Instagram decision was made simply because Tiiny was too much of a direct competitor.

SOURCE TechCrunch