Friday 5 — 7.15.2016

By Friday Five

  1. Pokémon fever struck this week with the release of Pokémon Go, an augmented reality app that allows players to catch virtual characters populating physical spaces. Here’s how it works. Om Malik points out that the app has heightened expectations for how we can access information, acting as a kind of gateway drug for broader applications of AR.
  2. Deane Barker points out the need for rationality when planning a content management system implementation. As someone who has been through the process more times than I’d care to admit, her observation about “irrational uniformity,” the tendency to slavishly shoehorn everything into the CMS, is apt.
  3. Anyone who posts regularly to social media recognizes the power of a strong image to grab attention. Here are some practical tips for ways non-designers can create images for social media.
  4. It’s easy to get bogged down in the visual look and feel of a brand, but these days a digital product’s performance is just as likely to shape users’ impressions. The Vox Media performance team talks about their approach, and their push to design fast experiences for the slowest networks. Learn more in this Responsive Web Design podcast (full transcript also available).
  5. Just over two months since its release, Facebook Live has become a powerful, popular broadcast mechanism. As a result, the social network must now address a host unintended consequences, most significantly increased scrutiny, as unedited, visceral human experiences — the mundane, the sublime, and the tragic — are broadcast to news feeds everywhere.

Weekend fun: Disturbed by the smartphone zombie culture? A social experiment app is trying to change that. For pure offline joy this summer, a pop up Museum of Ice Cream here in NYC will soon open with a pool full of sprinkles (that’s jimmies, to the civilized among you) that you can swim in. Brought to you by Tinder.

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.

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