Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week.

A lot can happen in five months! Roberto is interested in testing out at least some of the 35 most interesting and useful WordPress plugins released since September 2011. Included in the list is: a plugin that replaces the default comments widget with the Facebook Comments widget; a plugin that regularly backs up your website; and a plugin that helps secure your WordPress page. And now that you’ve got a bunch of new plugins, the Plugin Performance Profiler (or P3) will measure the impact of your plugin on your site’s load time.

Daveed is a little weary about Google’s changes to its privacy policy that will let it track consumers across its many online products such as YouTube, Gmail and Google Search. According to a Washington post article, Google will be amalgamating its data to create a more complete picture of its users. Many think this goes too far, especially because they won’t be able to opt out of being tracked. It may be little consolation, but Google wants to use this extra information to do “cool things”. (If you want to know what Google already thinks of you, check your interest and age profile.)

Brent was able to exchange some ideas on how to use Facebook to drive engagement at Dx3 Canada, a Toronto trade show dedicated to digital marketing, advertising and retail. One company that is using Facebook well is Etsy, an online marketplace that created an app which suggests items to you based on the likes and interests of your Facebook friends. This is supposed to make shopping for gifts easier, but it also helps make Etsy a more attractive site to buy from. With 18 million Canadians active on Facebook, companies stand to benefit from using the platform — preferably with a some elegance and creativity.

Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week.

Kobayashi Online - Around the Office

Wayne did some sleuthing this week to find out why someone would create a website widget for free. The reason: inbound links.

A great number of the inbound links to Ignite Social Media‘s website, for instance, come from the download page for its “Follow Me” plugin, according to data from Yahoo Site Explorer. The “Follow Me” plugin, in fact, does so well that it generates upwards of 1.15 million inbound links from a broad range of pages worldwide. The costs of developing a free widget, Wayne found, can be more than offset by the value of inbound links.

Brent has been hearing a lot about Color, a mobile photo sharing app with a twist. It lets you see photos taken by friends and strangers near your location. While comparisons have been drawn to random video chat application Chatroulette, Brent thinks it’s more like a marriage of dailybooth and geolocation. Color’s very hip and easy to use, and he thinks many small businesses should jump right in. A store, for instance, can take pictures of their products using Color, and anyone close to the store will see what’s in stock.

Eva has also been thinking about color – with a small “c”. She’s been salivating over Felissimo’s set of 500 coloured pencils, which are as suitable to display as they are for art. The company offers some beautiful acyclic display cases, and you can have 25 pencils delivered per month for a constantly changing display that will gradually take over a wall.

Daveed has been echoing the battle charge against FTP, a worn-out network protocol. In the manifesto, “FTP Must Die”, the argument against FTP is clear: “FTP is an outdated, insecure, slow and unfriendly pig of a protocol. It has no business being on the Internet in the 21st century.” Daveed is calling on those frustrated with FTP to put an end to it, or at least join in and make their frustrations heard.