Instagress Shut down

[MojoJojo]

Have FL or MP been contacted about this kind of problem before

I think both are pretty low key for the time being so I would guess "no".

Plus, when you are a multi-billion dollar company, you don't "contact", you sue and win. If there were contacted, they would've been shut down already.

What was it that IG didn't like? Accessibility to the service Instagress provided, or the results that Instagress gave? Or both?

That's a good one. If it was the accessibility they don't like I'm sure IG can just cut off their API access and call it a day.

Did spam comments piss off IG, or was it follow/unfollow?

I would think none of the above.

Spam comments and f/u is something IG can / is working on / doesn't care about on a global basis. I would imagine it is pretty ineffective to go after the tools, instead of try to eradicate the strategy as a whole.

[MojoJojo]

Perhaps Instagram were wiling to put up with them until they became too big?

Instagress is pretty pretty pretty pretty tiny as an audience for IG to really care. There are hundreds of millions of accounts, most of them not in English. Most of the IG population has zero idea such tools exist, especially in place where English is not that common.

[socialgrow]

Instagress is pretty pretty pretty pretty tiny as an audience for IG to really care. There are hundreds of millions of accounts, most of them not in English. Most of the IG population has zero idea such tools exist, especially in place where English is not that common.

I'm not so sure. Based on web traffic, we could speculate on how many users were on Instagress. Sure, most would have been running only one Instagram account, but some may have been running more than one. For Instagram, it's more about the collective impact of what these users were doing and how it was/is affecting the user experience on Insta. While the vast majority of users are oblivious that such growth-hacking methods are possible (or care), a lot of BS/spam is being given a platform.

Instagress were everywhere - articles in leading online publications etc., so they (directly or indirectly) were making far too much noise about the legitimacy of popular content and engagement on Instagram. This is detracting from Instagram itself as a brand.

And in the words of Petapixel: "Not only are these services against IG’s own Terms, they’re transparent, annoying, and just plain sad. If Instagram is finally closing down the bots, awesome! They can take their generic “Great shot thumbs up” and “So good!!! clapping hands” comments with them."

[Josh]

when you are a multi-billion dollar company, you don't "contact", you sue and win.

No kidding, that and pay out an arbitration fee and don't say anything publicly.

That's a good one. If it was the accessibility they don't like I'm sure IG can just cut off their API access and call it a day.

Even when they did the API changes back in mid-2016 they didn't do it. So I can definitely agree here.

I have a feeling MP and FL have a while longer. It's more complex, and challenging to use from the users perspective. It's also designed to not be interface/web friendly like Instagress was but rather functional.

I would think none of the above.

I think that f/unf pisses them off. They would rather you pay to play in the end. That's why they're making engagement more difficult through shadowing people (hah) who don't know how to automate.

Instagress is pretty pretty pretty pretty tiny as an audience for IG to really care.

I disagree. I believe Instagress was massive in size for IG to care.

Also some more cool info if people are interested. Comparing and contrasting stats and data is important. So I did a simple Google Trends analysis and I wasn't too surprised to see the soaring popularity of Instagress.

Google Trends

[MojoJojo]

I believe Instagress was massive in size for IG to care.

When IG (reportedly) has 600 million active users, how big can Instagress be for IG to care?

I think what got Instagress is they were getting popular so people were raising the eyebrow at IG asking "what are you gonna do about it". To me it is a PR thing.

It would be foolish to think IG did not know about them from the very start. Same goes for MP, FL or any other tool. Keep in mind that all tools use the API and as such, everything that is done is seen (and allowed) by IG in the backend.

[Josh]

To me it is a PR thing.

This.

I think it's a mixture of so many reasons, and all we will ever know is nothing. They certainly did this via arbitration, which means all legal disputes are settle quietly and cannot be disputed after/discussed publicly.

Consider that Instagress had been around for 3-4 years.

[wortime]

Keep in mind that all tools use the API and as such, everything that is done is seen (and allowed) by IG in the backend.

That's why they use an Android emulator. There are so many Andorids out there, they would have to ban them all. I just hope that the emulator rotates or was able for us to choose a model... I smell a feature request.

[snowbro]

Relax, don't be a cave dweller

[wortime]

Relax, don't be a cave dweller

What in tarnation are you referring to brotato?

[Johnny]

So MP staff, what's the news homies. Because Instagress is big time.

there's nothing else that we know and are not sharing, all was discussed in this topic already, I'd like to know what happened exactly as well we'll see how this goes..

If you check Massplanner, ~370k visitors a month.

and over 60% of that traffic is for the blog with those users having no clue we have a software or what it does

Since Instagress is gone I'm sure MP will get more publicity and will eventually get big like Instagress.

hope not, we're good the way we are now

The only solution: bump the price to $99 per month or more, make it more exclusive and don't make it a mass software.

replied in the private section about this.... many are just 1-2 account users that want to grow their little business, they will never afford that...

a lot of the Instagress folks will not stay beyond the trial, or first month.

I am certain you are right about this, and we are definitely not happy with what happened with Instagress, if you ask me it would have been way better for them to continue as they were with no problem.

I take it MPSocial is now open to anyone, including prospective users and/or spammers?

MPsocial is open to anyone that wants to learn or share about social media in general, we do however take care of spammers, that's why it's mostly in good shape

but perhaps someone knows more about how and why Instagress were shut down.

If someone does I'd really love to hear the exact reason

MP been contacted about this kind of problem before

no, and definitely hope to never hear from them ...except the "account un-banned" emails, those are totally fine

[Sparky]

I know Instagram want to crack down on bots but it seems like the main issue was probably the trademark of 'Insta':

[ANALYSIS] What Is Really Happening to Engagement - The Results of the Instagress Sweep

Obviously tons of people are freaking out about the Instagress shut down. While I've spent the entire day figuring out what's good and bad about this, here is something that people are overlooking completely. So I've broken it down based on my research on what I believe is a complete overhaul of Instagram, and a change of functionality and direction of the company. ANALYZING INSTAGRESS GROWTH TRENDS First off, we should note that Instagress was the most used bot on Instagram, period. With w…

I wonder if Instamate is next then!

[Josh]

@Sparky don't forget that Influx Social had their cords cut too. They were US based.

[PortraitPhotography]

I received a couple of new PMs today asking for help in learning how to use massplanner. Could be former instagress users

Maybe Brandon is getting a lot more of that.

[MojoJojo]

Maybe it is time for an "Instagress to MP transition service" in the marketplace

[Alexnvo]

The site says Forced to shut down. Something they did violated laws. Botting is not against the law..so something they did..did their own demise..unless threatened to be taken to court which Facebook can afford...and it would cripple business. Another thing..they are offering refunds...that means they somehow prepared for this in the past...it smells a lawsuit of some kind either from Facebook or a class action. if followliker or MP get targeted...there are always bots available that comes around the corner.

[dddd]

there are always bots available that comes around the corner

You think so? I mean sure there are, but if the crackdown came to mp, then it will send a huge shockwave to the entire self hosted bot industry, so nope, i dont think you will see any around the corner.

Like how pogo bots get shut down, the rest of it just said "we're done".

[Alexnvo]

on git-hub the open source site...there are bots galore...use at own risk...it already out there.

[Alexnvo]

I doubt MP would do this...but if they got attacked, and somehow forced to shutdown business...there is no law that said they could not release source for a earlier versions of MP with basic followliker settings..in one swoop...mp would multiply what Instagram was trying to shut down..botting...the young guns would take and run away with better versions...botting then would be part of the face of instagram...forever.

[dddd]

The issue here isn't likely the source code. They can release it even for free, but without their continuous update, it's as good as dead.

Like how pogo uses money to crack down on it, now the entire pogo bot industry is basically in ruin. The source is out there, and people can tweak it themselves if they know it, but that's about it. Granted, it's not as complicated as how MP is coded.

I doubt any average user is going to know how to code. Let alone fix a bug.

[Alexnvo]

If there's a need somebody fills it. Worse comes to worse buy a copy of followliker and for me, it's solved ..I use Mp for 2 things only..follow/unfollow and scheduled posts ..