1. “Just a Brown Hand” takes a look at the decision process behind a seemingly small detail: the skin color of the hand depicted in the new Add to Slack feature launched this week. It’s a good reminder of the normative defaults often hard coded into software we use.
2. Curious about the future of tech and media? If so, this 136-slide Activate 2016 Tech and Media Outlook is definitely worth the time. A few points in particular stood out for me: the rise of messaging over “traditional” social media; the 31(!) hours a day we now have for consumption thanks to multitasking; and the difficulty of getting rich via the app store.
3. Tom Davenport explains five essential principles for understanding analytics. I particularly like the point about getting close to your organization’s small, structured data, the value of which often gets lost in the endless big data hype.
4. Buffer blogged this week about the sharp, year-over-year decline in social traffic to its blog. The post reviews in detail the likely suspects causing the decline, and then posits two potential solutions: paid reach and more targeted content. They’re opting for the latter, but I suspect the combination might be the answer.
5. Facebook is now making public posts — all 2 trillion of them — accessible via its powerful search engine. A robust search capability gives Facebook a stronger foothold in breaking news and following live events, which has traditionally been Twitter’s turf. But let’s cut to the chase: here’s how to hide yours.

Weekend fun: So we didn’t get our hoverboards in time for #BacktotheFuture day, but we did get this insane Magic Leap video. If you’re looking for a more manageable digital achievement, you might want to try Instagram’s new Boomerang app. There are already more than 125K boomerangs in the wild — here’s one for inspiration:

Synchronized Sisters 👯 – #boomerang from @instagram

A video posted by Harlow, Sage, Indiana & Reese (@harlowandsage) on Oct 22, 2015 at 9:33am PDT

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.