In the world of AMC’s hit show Breaking Bad, high school chemistry teacher Walter White transforms into the notorious Meth producer, “Heisenberg”. The show concluded with an impressive series finale. To celebrate the success of this incredibly powerful drama, we’re going to examine the WordPress plugins that each character may have used to help facilitate business and communication within the storyline of Breaking Bad. There are spoilers and mild curse words in this post. If you were into Breaking Bad as much as I was, you’re going to have fun with this one!
Heisenberg’s lab test results were key in testing out freshly cooked product. Setting the benchmark at a whopping 97%, Walter White would have benefited greatly by showing off his results with a great chart plugin. The plugin of choice for this task would be WordPress Charts. WP Charts gives you many different options for embedding HTML5 charts into your posts. From bar and line Graphs to radar and doughnut charts, this plugin delivers six different forms of chart displays by using a simple shortcode. The animated data presentation is very cool as the chart “grows” on the page. There are limitless data fields, which could enable Heisenberg to create ongoing data charts to track the progression of the various cooks found throughout the operation. Each chart embeds via shortcode, with multiple charts permitted on a single post or page. Almost anything can be modified, including the colors, index labels and graph values. There are no back-end settings required to create a chart, as everything is shortcode based.
Jesse Pinkman had shown some of his social networking prowess early in the series. Jesse’s online profile at shoutout.us, “Cap’n Cook’s Krystal Palace” was the shizzy back in the day, yo. But as time passed, Jesse seemed more like the kind of guy who would rather post his content on his own blog first, followed by automatic social status updates. To accomplish this he would most likely use WordBooker. Wordbooker is one of the most effective plugins for posting your content summaries to Facebook. Whether you want to post to a personal profile or a fan page, WordBooker makes it easy to integrate Facebook into your WordPress installation. After a brief connection to Facebook for credentials and authorization, WordBooker accesses the pages and groups that you have administrative credentials for. From that point on, you have full control over which pages will receive summaries of content when you publish a new post. You can turn functionality off and on directly within the post editor, allowing for individual post control of what is broadcast to Facebook. Another great feature is the ability to automatically pull comments from Facebook into your WordPress post comments. Again, this can be controlled on a per-post basis.
Saul Goodman is an attorney specializing in representing the disadvantaged victims of overzealous law enforcement. Though he frequents late night TV to promote his firm, his reputation would also be reinforced with a good WordPress testimonials plugin. What better way to highlight the success stories of the innocent than the Easy Testimonials WordPress plugin? With the ease of the standard post editor, new testimonials can be added with full HTML capability. This allows for text, images and even video testimonials to be inserted into any page of content. There is also a widget for displaying random testimonials in the sidebar. The plugin can show specific testimonials by their ID number or choose from the testimonials at random. Whichever method is selected, Saul can show off his legal victories within the context of any post.
With the new AMC prequel “Better Call Saul” in development, there will be plenty of Saul Goodman to enjoy for many years to come. I’m looking forward to seeing the clients that Saul represents and the possible testimonials that they provide!
Los Pollos Hermanos was an established fast food chicken franchise in the Southwestern United States. With more than 14 restaurant locations in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Texas, franchise owner Gustavo Fring would have made a wise decision using WordPress to establish and promote the corporate brand online. Fourteen different locations require a rather powerful plugin to properly display all of the restaurants. By using Store Locator Plus, Gus could have created an interactive map with location pins for all of his stores within just an hour. Featuring interactive Google Maps technology, SLP is a great solution for anyone running WordPress that has multiple retail locations. This plugin comes in a lite version straight out of the repository. It also boasts a powerful paid version that enables mass importing and many other premium features like enhanced store search (by hours, by products offered, etc). It also boasts complete door-to-door directions and highlights individual store details such as phone number, address, hours and contact information for the store manager. As the slogan says, “At Los Pollos Hermanos, There’s Always Something Cooking!”
Brandon “Badger” Mayhew and Skinny Pete are both accomplished musicians that recently came into a lot of money. Why not get the band back together? Yes, long before Mr. White arrived on the scene, Badger (vocals/guitar), Jesse (drums) and Paul Tyree (bass) were known in the scene as punk/metal group “TwaüghtHammër”. With locally renowned hits like “Fallacies” and “DOA in ABQ”, it’s no surprise that the band would also have an equally killer WordPress presence. For selling music, most local bands go through Bandcamp to handle song purchases. In order to maximize the possibilities for stacking cheddar, TwaüghtHammër should use the WP BandCamp plugin. This simple widget allows Badger to embed the Bandcamp player with an easy to configure widget that only requires the band’s album ID number. Site visitors can listen to all the latest TwaüghtHammër tracks and buy single tracks or the full album. Share functionality is enabled, allowing the option for fans to spread the word. It’s Hammër time, yo!
Skyler White – There’s no better way to “Make it an A1 Day” than to receive a coupon from your favorite car wash. As general manager of the A1A Car Wash, Skyler was focused on generating as much business as possible in order to facilitate the money laundering scheme. More customers means more money that can be laundered. What better way to keep customers coming back than a coupon for free air freshener or other car care professional services. To accomplish this Skyler could have utilized Coupon Creator for making printable coupons. This simple plugin will allow Mrs. White to create and publish her first coupons within minutes. The simple coupon interface allows for changes in headlines, text color, background, images and expiration date. When inserted via shortcode, the plugin automatically creates a “Click to Print” link to allow customers to print their coupon right at home.
Even if you are not a fan of the show Breaking Bad, there are certainly a number of great plugins represented in this post to provide a creative spark in your own plugin applications. Remember to test and analyze your own results of these plugins on a staging site before going live. Too many plugins could cause your WordPress installation to overdose, which in turn might drive your dad to mistakenly force two passenger jets to crash in mid-air. Help prevent airline catastrophes! Use a staging site!
Wow, Marcus — what a great way to do plugin reviews — thanks!