New in 4.8: Open API removed, Agency accounts for Boosts

Hello, fellow users!

Here’s quick recap of changes coming in Flow-Flow 4.8 version. First, we decided to remove Open API for Instagram feeds as final step of migration to new official Business API by Facebook for Facebook/Instagram. We understand this can mean that additional action is required for those who still use old way but Open API currently lacks reliability we are trying to maintain in Flow-Flow during all these years. According to our support statistics Open API didn’t work well for majority of users anyways, because Instagram restricted access for crawler robots and access from data centers (where you website servers are usually located). As positive side of doing migration, new Business API allows access to unique feeds that we are preparing to release in nearest future. These include Mentions and Stories feeds for Instagram and Reviews and Events feeds for Facebook. However Business API comes with some restrictions: no comments data for Instagram posts and no Location Instagram feeds. Plus, access to new API has more requirements than old one but it’s available for anyone and not that hard to set everything up. Please check detailed step-by-step guide. Important to notice: with Flow-Flow it’s possible to pull posts of any Business/Creator Instagram or Facebook page even if you are not owner of this page. Just use your own pages to get access token and then pull posts of any other public page.

Second change in 4.8 is the one we’ve made for Boosts cloud service. We noticed demand in using single subscription on multiple domains so we’ve implemented beta version of agency/freelancer accounts. What are the main selling points?

• Ease of maintaining. Because if there are any changes in networks API access (the most volatile thing in Flow-Flow and similar apps) we update code on our side in the cloud and delivery of feed on website is not interrupted. We have control over connection to API unlike self-hosted solution. It means less updates of plugin on client’s website due to API changes.
• No need to ask client to get access tokens. You can use own tokens as noticed above, it’s possible to pull any public Business/Creator account, even if you are not admin of pages of your clients. Exclusive for Boosts, we use own extended developer access to Instagram pages and it’s possible to pull even non-Business accounts and posts comments. In short, you use our access as proxy.
• Additional features. Cloud service allowed us to implement features that are only possible for cloud platform such as additional monitoring for Facebook/Instagram image URLs expiration (when broken images are displayed) and updating such posts on the fly in the cloud and on website page so visitors don’t even notice such problem. Many more exclusive features are on the roadmap.