1. We all see (and rely on) many more visual representations of data these days — charts are everywhere in your social streams. Needless to say, how you set up your chart to reflect the numbers matters. Here’s a handy guide to spotting charts that lie. (Yes, Yankees fans, that chart is deceiving.)
2. Facebook is already a dominant platform for video reach — and they are getting more serious about how to measure your preferences and behaviors. Facebook will factor in engagement metrics beyond likes and shares, including whether a user chooses to take a video full screen or turn down the audio.
3. People throw around the term “uniques” as if we’re all certain we’re counting the same thing — but we’re not. The quantitatively-inclined folks over at FiveThirtyEight define “the cookie conundrum,” the impact of mobile, and the perils of relying of different companies’ proprietary models to explain why it’s so hard to measure web traffic in 2015.
4. What’s a common misstep for today’s data-driven marketer? On chiefmartec.com this week, Cesar Brea posits that it’s easy to get lost in the quest for the perfect KPI and squeaky clean data. Instead, marketers should focus their analytics efforts on getting to good-enough, and then continuously working to improve the results of the business.
5. Does it ever seem like every single person in your social network is doing the same thing? New research highlights how the majority illusion can skew perception in social networks. If the most popular nodes engage in a behavior, others overestimate how many engage in that behavior — perhaps contributing to the rise of FOMO. The challenge for marketers looking to spread behaviors is to reach those most popular nodes, the “influencerati.”

Weekend fun: Don’t miss @stephenathome’s view from the bunker on this week’s Apocalypse Dow. If you have 99 cents left after the collapse, you might just spend it on an app to troll your friends with Game of Thrones quotes.

Friday 5 is taking a break next week to enjoy the summer with family and friends, and do a little reading beyond 140 characters. (Here are some ideas for bringing books back to your daily routine.) See you back here on July 24 — in the meantime, email me the analytics approaches and text-trolling techniques I missed.

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.