1. Everybody scrolls, but visual cues don’t hurt. HUGE is starting a series on usability best practices, and this first post takes on “above the fold” dogma.
2. File under meta: here’s another piece why newsletters matter. Capable curation and a strong personal voice drive higher open rates and engagement. Larger organizations can reap the same benefits if they identify the right segments for their content, and fuel their communications with both voice and deft curation.
3. Jonah Peretti explained to The Verge how an app company acquisition will support a “Buzzfeed everywhere” strategy. It’s a must-read for his thoughts on technology-enabled distribution, managing video in hyper-growth mode, and the importance of building collaboration between engineering and editorial teams.
4. Want to explain a new feature to users who will never RTFM? Fun idea: Try creating an animated GIF that shows the feature in action.
5. I try to avoid including year-end prediction pieces, but loved this summary of the state of consumer technology at the end of 2014 (h/t Fred Wilson).  Excited to see what 2015 brings in mobile communications.

Weekend fun: Are you counting down the minutes until the end of 2014? You might not have guessed that every single minute has a corresponding hex color, or that you can use a stream of tweets as a clock.

 Friday 5 is taking a break to celebrate the New Year with some Vietnamese spring rolls. We’ll be back in action on Friday, January 16, 2015. 

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.