1. Tired of drafting the same email reply over and over? Google is here to help with SmartReply, a new Inbox app feature that suggest replies to your email messages. You can edit the reply as suggested, or delete it and write your own. Extra credit: Geek out on the machine learning under the hood.
2. If you are responsible for data storytelling, new research explained by Storybench may come in handy. Read more about the study and key takeaways on what makes a visualization memorable. Glad to see validation of one I’ve long suspected: title and text really matter.
3. Content publishers often think of social networks when it comes to sharing, but messaging apps are building a huge audience. To better understand the direction of messaging apps, read these product insights from WeChat (600M monthly active users).
4. This year, the New York Times is paying attention to push — the notifications that drive you to engage with content. Notifications are moving beyond breaking news (perhaps factoring in location?), and the team is measuring to learn how much is too much.
5. Paul Ford is characteristically eloquent and thoughtful in this article on ephemeralist reading. For anyone who has ever lost an afternoon pulling the thread of an idea through an online database, this is a must-read.

Weekend fun: If you use Twitter, you couldn’t miss the kerfuffle over a star changing to a heart. Intended to simplify the experience for new users, the switch ended up provoking some hilarious reactions. It’s the norm for established Twitter user to express outrage over feature changes; basically, we’re guinea pigs responding to a dinner bell.

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.