Dooley Online

Friday Fun: Create Your Own Online Memory Game

In my spare time, I blog about Bollywood.

For playback singer Sukhwinder Singh, I recently celebrated his birthday by creating an online memory game using the website www.yourownmemory.com. 

Here's the finished game as posted on my blog:

Besides looking sweet, this game can be played multiple times as the cards are reshuffled each time you replay the game or reload the page.

Creating the game is simple. But you need to do some work beforehand. Here's what I recommend you do before creating your online memory game:

1. Create a series of images that will be resized: 
   • 1 800x600 background image (will be resized)
   • 1 200x200 square logo representing your brand or website
   • 1 200x200 square card back image
   • 10 200x200 square images that will show up when the card if flipped. These images will be resized, so you want close-ups or otherwise easily-identifiable images that are still recognizable when scaled down. You also want to make sure that the images aren't too dark.
2. Create a document of text to be used for the memory game:
   • Game Filename Title (for saving your work to a unique URL): 
   • Game Title: 
   • Game Menu Text (max 110 characters): 
   • In-Game Text (max 50 characters; optional): 
   • After Game Text (max 115 characters): 

The reason I recommend setting all this up beforehand is that once you create a memory game you don't have the option of editing/updating the files. So, you might find yourself creating more than one game before you get the version you want.

Here are two of my previous versions which didn't work out quite right:

Version 1

What I didn't like about this one is the white lettering on light gray background. It just doesn't work. The reason I picked the gray background for the graphic initially was because it was an extension of the gray background of the image of Sukhwinder Singh. While I wanted to retain this image of Singh in the left side - a positioning that works - I had to crop the image and Photoshop out the gray background. I also had to increase the size of the image of Sukhwinder because the original graphic is cropped so that his left leg is cut off in the front at the knee. Once those issues were taken care of I could use a background color that was more conducive to displaying the white text. I decided to use a Blue #003F6A.

The other issue was that I wasn't totally satisfied with all the game images. I felt two of them were too dark and one needed to be cropped more appropriately for this medium. So I revised these images as well.

And because I created a document with the text I wanted to use for the game, I was able to easily adjust (as necessary) and cut-and-paste that information into the memory game creator.

Version 2

This version is much better. I did add a small lens flare to the background, but the game developers add some visual elements as well, so you can go with a plain background color.  Also note that you don't need to create a background image - the developers give you a selection of colors to choose from if you don't have a background image; however, a background image allows you to further identify the memory game content.

I still wasn't satisfied with this version because when you play the game, the In Game Text: "Find the matching song pairs" covers our singer's face.  Note that the text around Sukhwinder's waist is a little difficult to read as well, but it is still legible and because I like the image so much I decided not to make changes here. But keep this text in mind when you are designing your background image.

Each time you create a game, you are provided with a link, embed code, iframe code and a SWF ZIP file download. For each of the three games I created, I copied all this information into the same document I was using for the game configuration and downloaded the SWF ZIP file. Note that while you can use the SWF ZIP file download to host the content on your site, when developers update the site the revisions won't carry-over to your file. Also, this ZIP uses the same name each time you save so you should be sure to revise the filename, associating it with the version created.

Let me know if you try out this cool tool! And check out my Bollywood Blog "Songs of Sukhwinder Singh: A Memory Game."

5 Things to Think About Before Launching Multiple Twitter Accounts

In a recent Twitter training session, I was asked if people should create two accounts - one for personal use and one for professional use. 

My initial response was mixed. For someone new to Twitter, I am inclined to encourage them to get up-to-speed with one Twitter account before trying to manage more. However, if you have multiple reasons for using Twitter that don't fit neatly into one account, it makes sense to consider setting up multiple accounts.

Before going this route you should consider five key factors to keep in mind when launching any Twitter presence:

1. Building Your Listening Post

Creating twitter account that is useful to you requires that you spend the time to identify and follow people who post tweets you want to read. You can segment your audience by having multiple Twitter accounts or you can set up one account and segment by leveraging Twitter Lists or tools like Paper.li.

2. Establishing Your Voice

What kind of information do you want to share? What do you want to say? What original resources (blogs, infographics, videos, powerpoints) do you plan to provide about a specific topic? How does what you have to say reflect on your brand? Does your organization have social media policies that provide guidance to employees in the social media space? You can set up different accounts to reflect your different voices or set up one account describing what you tweet about. If what you have to say is vastly different 

3. Building Your Community

The idea "if you build it, they will come" only works on Twitter if you are some type of celebrity or tweet about really useful content on a consistent basis. Just because you set up a Twitter account doesn't mean you'll get the right followers. While Twitter is an easy online tool to set up, make sure you are willing to participate in the online conversation. Just like growing a garden, you need to spend the time to feed and build the community.  If you set up more than one Twitter account, assume you'll have to spend that much more time to build community around each.

4. Managing Your Accounts

Each Twitter account requires a unique email address. So, if you manage multiple Twitter accounts, you will need to setup and manage multiple email accounts as well. You will also want to select an easy-to-remember username for your Twitter account that reflects you, your brand, or the content you are tweeting about.

If you are working with multiple Twitter accounts you may also want to leverage some online tools to help you manage them. Here are two to start with:

• Twitterfeed.com will automatically feed your blog posts to your Twitter account and provides some configuration on how those feeds are posted.
• Hootsuite.com can help you manage multiple twitter accounts by providing a URL shortener, ability to schedule tweets, and analytics. There are also a number add-ons to expand this management suite of tools.

Finally, you will want to identify milestones to analyze the success of your account - growth rate of follows, retweets, clickthroughs, follower type, etc. On the issue of follow-to-folllower ratio, it is best to have your followers number close to or higher than the number of accounts you follow. This will help you avoid the dreaded 2000 follow limit.

5. Developing a Strategy that Considers Other Social Media Platforms

While this is listed last, you should begin developing your strategy first. And be prepared to modify your strategy as your online presence evolves.

You should being by acknowledging that Twitter should be just one of your tools in your online communications strategy.

Before you you jump into any social network, consider your audience: Who are you trying to reach? What social networks are they most likely to already be using? What do you want them to do? Are there existing social networks you can feed content to? Facebook (the largest social network out there), LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest are all viable platforms for communicating your message. And don't forget the opportunity to leverage email, the first online social network. 

Once you consider these five points, the decision on whether you set up one Twitter account or several is up to you. Just make sure you have a strategy in place for long-term participation in the online conversation so that your account(s) don't go fallow.