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perfcell · 5 years

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Do you have any tips or pieces of advice for someone who's looking to start up an rp blog for a character? I have plenty of experience roleplaying, but none of it is with tumblr.

//OH sure sure !!

lets get the technical stuff out first, make the account for your new blog in advance, before you prepare anything else because tumblr has this anti-bots security system in place which doesnt allow new blog’s posts to show up in the tags (and tags such as #indie rp, #anime rp, #insert show here rp are pretty important in getting ur blog out there). you’ll also have to follow some people, get followed back by at least one, reblog+like some posts before your stuff starts showing up in the tags

of course u can disregard the whole promotion thing and just follow people and wait for them to follow you back, but if u want new people to find you without you actively looking for them, its good to drop something in the rp tag. but again, you dont have to do any of this.

ALSO IM PUTTING THE REST UNDER READ MORE BC IT GOT LENGTHY:

so heres stuff you can prepare (or not, its totally up to you !!)

icons - a relict of dreamwidth era , not necessary but i find that they add some zest to the interactions so personally, im a fan. usually 100px x 100px u can make them fancy or not, your choice. just get some basic facial expressions (but again, you dont NEED them)

themes - some rpers pay a lot of attention to blog themes, i used to be like that but tbh rn i dont think anything beats a nice basic theme w/ a readable font. hit up theme hunter and snag a theme u like !!! OR DON’T, thats totally up to you !!!

also you can set your blog to dash only in the blog’s settings which means u dont have to bother w/ a theme !! its a popular thing in rpc nowadays !!!

oh and just a hint – id avoid using somebody’s art for icons or elements of theme… i mean sure u can credit them but hardly anybody looks at credits so idk id just avoid it altogether cuz the artists dont like that and theyre absolutely right. i used to use peoples art for icons and i had some artists reach out to me and ask that i dont do that and tbh now i cringe at my past-self for not seeing that its soo disrespectful of the artists

what to put on blog:

about page - its a page where rpers put some basic information about the character they write as. it can be super important if youre writing as an OC (not many people will follow an OC if they dont know anything about them tbh) !!! if youre writing a canon character u can just resort to filling out a basic dossier (like listing their name, age, whatever… YOU CAN USE THIS and fill out what u like). or you know, do whatever. on cell, i just wrote a piece of Something and linked his wikipedia page lol. do what you feel like, its just a thing in rp community.

rules page - slightly more important. this is where you set boundaries and introduce yourself ooc. after introductions ur expected to tell people what’s NOT ok by you, for example, you say that godmodding is not ok (godmodding is when people write in their own responses what ur character is doing), maybe shipping is not ok by you, maybe u dont want to write smut ever etc. you put all of that there and any additional info you feel the need to add (for example, asking people to tag certain triggers etc). try to browse other peoples rules pages to get the feel

verses page - some blogs have a lot of specific verses like idk, an AU in which ur character is evil etc. this is a page where u can put them and add descriptions, UP TO YOU. i find that its less important than about or rules page, focus on those 2 first, especially the rules page bc its what people usually check out first before writing with u!! add verses later !!!

how to start an rp blog:

OK so lets say you’re prepared and ready to write. i usually post a promo to announce my Arrival to the rp market. take a look at what’s in the indie rp tag for example, just to give you an idea what ppl post there. it used to be REQUIRED to post like… a graphic advertising ur blog but tbh these days u can just drop a text post (preferably with ur icon so that people know which character u write) and you say smth like ‘HELLO, a new (character here) RP blog here!!! like/reblog if youre interested in writing with me!!’ (ofc write whats natural to you, just introduce ur blog in whatever way u feel like it– OR DONT, YOU DONT HAVE TO DO THIS)

BEFORE POSTING A PROMO MAKE SURE YOUR POSTS SHOW UP IN TAGS FIRST. YOU MIGHT HAVE TO FOLLOW SOME PEOPLE FIRST (refer to this) – where to find those rp blogs?? refer to tags below.

what to tag your promo with: remember that only 5 first tags will show up in the search results. so pick some good tags, i think the most important tag is #(show/movie/books name) rp. heres my promo, u can check the tags i used there and come up with your own accordingly. and also browse these tags to find people to follow, like idk, lets say u wanna rp sb from naruto, then u hit up #naruto rp and just scroll and follow ! also avoid using swear words or nsfw words in ur promo bc tumblr will censor it lol

but remember YOU DONT HAVE TO POST A PROMO, THIS IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU !!!!!

how to start WRITING on an rp blog:

ok so youve gathered some followers, now what. i usually just post a starter call! this is a post that people who want to write with you will like and you in turn will start a thread with them (doesnt have to be IMMEDIATELY, take ur time). you can also reblog rp memes which are like writing prompts people send to you (but i dont recommend starting ur rp blog w/ a memes barrage, people usually want to get to know your blog a little bit more before they send you a prompt).

you can also wait for other people to post starter calls and then you like them (but check their rules first !!! for example, most people have a rule about being mutuals only, which means they will write you something only if youre following each other back), which also works.

AND THATS HOW IT GOES !!! you are now writing on an rp blog. remember to take it easy and do what feels natural !!! browse some other rp blogs to get Inspired (but dont just lift things, stealing is a big no-no in the community). do what you feel comfortable with, if you dont want to make icons then dont! you’ll always find somebody who’ll write with you without icons (we just rly like them lol). be patient with others and yourself, read peoples rules, be nice, dont reblog an rp meme without sending a prompt to the person youre reblogging from (thats called reblog karma, if you dont wanna send a prompt then rb from the source), put yourself out there and UHH have fun !

#if u have any other questions feel free to ask IVE BEEN AT IT FOR A LOOONG TIME i am a fountain of knowledge #Unfortunately.#Anonymous #and again you dont have to do any ot this its jsut advice. there is no RP police that will hunt you down if you dont have an about page #those r just standards people are most familiar with !

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sylviajackson10 · 4 years

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from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about-search-engine-optimization-now/ from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.tumblr.com/post/621541799766491136

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markdaniel9 · 4 years

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Outsmart Your Competition: Learn About Search Engine Optimization Now

In order to fully optimize your site, you must focus on keyword density. Your keyword content on any given page should not exceed 20 percent.

Search Engines

Make sure to write for human readers when doing your search engine optimization. So keep that in mind as you decide on your content. Readability is a must. If they cannot, your business may fail.

Social Media

source https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about-search-engine-optimization-now/ from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.blogspot.com/2020/06/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about.html

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lynchburgseoexpert · 4 years

Text

Outsmart Your Competition: Learn About Search Engine Optimization Now

In order to fully optimize your site, you must focus on keyword density. Your keyword content on any given page should not exceed 20 percent.

Search Engines

Make sure to write for human readers when doing your search engine optimization. So keep that in mind as you decide on your content. Readability is a must. If they cannot, your business may fail.

Social Media

from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about-search-engine-optimization-now/

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lexiehewitt6 · 4 years

Text

Outsmart Your Competition: Learn About Search Engine Optimization Now

In order to fully optimize your site, you must focus on keyword density. Your keyword content on any given page should not exceed 20 percent.

Search Engines

Make sure to write for human readers when doing your search engine optimization. So keep that in mind as you decide on your content. Readability is a must. If they cannot, your business may fail.

Social Media

from https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about-search-engine-optimization-now/

from Lynchburg SEO Expert - Blog https://lynchburgseoexpert.weebly.com/blog/outsmart-your-competition-learn-about-search-engine-optimization-now

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seoagencyspecialist · 4 years

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Email Lead Marketing – The Art and Science of Turning Subscribers Into Raving Customers | Ema...

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luovita · 5 years

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Blogging tips and tutorials

This report includes the resources we use and recommend based on our experience in the online world. If you have doubts in applying these please reach out. We are glad to help and grateful to connect.

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Next, upload the saved CSV file and put your subscribers under the designated tags, in this case, “Imported Subscribers”. Align the columns on the CSV sheet to the relevant ConvertKit fields and then, finally, hit “Import Subscribers”. Repeat this for other lists, if available. 4. Form creation – This is the first look of your dashboard.

Once you click on “Create Form”, you can choose a form or a landing page. Let us go with form for now. You may choose one of three styles that serve different purposes.

You can also go ahead and customize your form by clicking on the icon at the top right edge as per the picture below. Colour as you wish, and you may even personalize as per your brand.

Access settings and change your form name, which is only visible to you, available on Dashboard once you sign-in. Modify the success message to what you want your subscribers to see when they fill up the form and hit “Subscribe”. You may, if you wish, redirect subscribers to a different page that displays a thank you message for subscribing or something else. After this, click on the “Save Form” button. 5. Incentive Emails – This is the very email that subscribers will receive that will be a confirmation of their subscription. You can turn it off if you so wish by clicking on the checkbox adjacent to the “send incentive/double opt-in emails” to your subscriber checkbox. Configure email and the subject title along with the email and button text! Go ahead and select the form style!

6. Form Addition – Now, on to embedding the subscription form on your website. There are three methods present, namely, WordPress, Javascript or Raw HTML.

So, don’t wait and lay the groundwork for your future with ConvertKit’s excellent facilities!

GetResponse is a complete online marketing solution. It provides turnkey newsletter publishing and hosting features, as well as unlimited follow-up autoresponders, landing pages, webinars, marketing automation, and CRM to deliver information to your contacts and convert them to paying customers. Through responsible and fully automated list hygiene, anti-spam practices, and established relationships with major Internet service providers and email service providers, GetResponse prides itself on the highest possible email deliverability to ensure that your messages get through to your prospective customers. The platform delivers over 5 billion emails each year in 172 countries. GetResponse is fully scalable and capable of handling both small and very large lists (1+ million subscribers).

GetResponse in highlights:

Over 100,000 active accounts 30-day free trial Deliverability of up to 68% higher than our competitors Unlimited emails Powerful, automatic message personalization Smart tracking features

What benefits does it bring?

Catches lost sales and jolts your leads into profitable action Boosts your lead generation and business-building results Chops away tedious and repetitious email marketing tasks When you sign up for an account with GetResponse, you will be supported every step of the way by their excellent customer support and materials (context help, user guides, FAQs, and video tutorials). You will benefit from industry-leading email deliverability which GetResponse consistently maintains through their solid relationships with ISPs, proactive delivery initiatives, and strong anti-spam commitment. Try GetResponse today and find out how you can instantly get tangible, measurable results without wasting your time or investing a lot of money. The GetResponse List Building Program is a comprehensive email marketing course that covers everything you need to know to grow your list by up to 10,000 subscribers in as little as 90 days. Now marketers can maximize their email marketing efforts by taking advantage of this free program and enhancing their lists with new, engaged subscribers. The list building program, used with GetResponse email marketing tools, is the complete marketing solution. Marketers are provided with the know-how and necessary tools to launch a comprehensive and effective email marketing campaign. The course is unique to GetResponse and created exclusively for GetResponse customers; both free trial and pro accounts that have less than 10,000 subscribers. Customers may choose from two program schedules: the 90-day fast track and the 180-day standard program. Each session consists of a video tutorial, presentation, and an article. Those who complete the program and acquire at least 1,000 new subscribers will receive a GetResponse University Certificate of Performance. More details about the course may be found here: Getresponse Course So, then we have Social Media, if you are active and I think you are and should be consider using SMARTERQUEUE

SmarterQueue is a great post scheduling platform and a better alternative to the likes of Hootsuite and others. Why? Simply because it is all round more flexible with a focused view on customer friendly usability. These are what makes SmarterQueue truly effective: User-friendly interface- SmarterQueue has a great user-friendly interface which is very easy to use. The navigation is straightforward, and you can even filter your queue by category and social media platform. Competent pricing- In terms of pricing, no one can beat SmarterQueue. $20 a month will connect you up to four social media platforms that include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. RSS Feeds to help in content curation- If you are currently using Feedly to curate your content, you will love how easy it is to integrate Feedly with SmarterQueue. SmarterQueue will import all your feeds so that you can curate content from one place without having to log in to Feedly. Posting simplicity- SmarterQueue makes posting content effortless and easy. Simply set a posting schedule for each of your accounts and then create categories for each type of content that you want to share. From there, just add posts to your categories and SmarterQueue will do the rest. Social media analytics- Social Media Analytics in SmarterQueue can help you decide when is the right time to post on Facebook or tweet, so that it gets the maximum visibility. Let’s learn the steps to properly get on with the SmarterQueue platform! Step 1: Visit SmarterQueue and go ahead to the sign-up page!

Choose how you want to sign-up and then log-in in the future. You will be prompted to start a trial or leave that for later. Once you are past that, it is time to set up the account for your work. This is how it looks:

Add the profiles accordingly to expand your network on the platform. These are where you will be able to post via SmarterQueue, once you are up and running. Step 2: This is where you categorize by creating post categories. What are these? They are the different varieties of content that you will be putting up on social media. Name these as you like and make them relevant for ease of scheduling in the future.

Step 3: It is now time to create a schedule based on the categories that you have defined. The schedule is also for which accounts you want to post and in what order.

Step 4: Next up, add content to the posts! Your first option should be evergreen posts. What are these? Well, these are posts with a continuous recycle patter, that is, they are always renewing themselves. On SmarterQueue, the moment you add a new post, it immediately goes for the next available time and after being shared, it is sent to the bottom of the queue automatically. Basically, you fill up your queue once, and the platform automatically takes care of the scheduling from then onwards. Step 5: Like what you have seen so far? If you have had a great experience for the trial period, don’t forget to go for the paid subscriptions for continued services and greater benefits.

Every plan has the same basic features, except that the real difference is with the number of categories, volume of social media accounts, queued and daily posts. This is obviously one of the finer options out there and it’s time you get your membership of SmarterQueue! An alternative for Social Media is Social Pilot

Social Pilot SocialPilot is one of the most popular social media marketing and scheduling platform which was specifically developed for social media professionals and agencies. Here are some unique features that sets it apart from others; custom Facebook branding, bulk scheduling, team collaboration, social media calendar and client management.

The Benefits of SocialPilot are as follows:

Customized Facebook Branding- Using SocialPilot for sharing on Facebook, you can put your own customized branding so that it does not look automated. Bulk Scheduling- Using this feature you can create bulk posts as much as 500 or more at once, by simply uploading the CSV files. This awesome attribute allows users to manage multiple social media platforms with great ease and flexibility. Collaboration within teams- Using this platform, users can easily invite their team member to work in collaboration, share files, communicate, and come up with some useful business ideas. You can include as many participants as you want. Social Media Calendar- Users can visualize their social media sharing strategies and make them more creative and fruitful using SocialPilot. Effective extension on the browser- SocialPilot offers browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Safari which not only lets the user share an interesting article from the internet, but also enables them schedule images from Canva. Social Media Analytics- The platform provides powerful, yet easy to understand social media analytics that lets a user improvise social media marketing with efficiency. Step 1: Visit the SocialPilot website and click on the “Get Started” button in orange.

Steps 2: Once you click on the Get Started button you will be redirected to the “Plans” page, which offers 4 distinct plans, namely Individual, Professional, Small team and Agency.

*we recommend you start with the “Individual plan” to see how it pans out. Step 3: In the next step, after you have chosen your preferred plan, click on start your 14-day trial and you will be redirected to the following page. You won’t require your credit card for this process.

Step 4: Fill up the credential details and click on “Signup”. You will be further redirected to a page where you will need to connect with any of your available social media account. You can also save time by skipping this step and connecting with any of the 3 specific social media platforms mentioned here, namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and complete the registration procedure.

Step 5: When you have completed registration, you will receive an email asking to confirm the email address you used for signing up. As soon as you confirm that email address you will be redirected to a dashboard. Step 6: As you reach the “dashboard” page or log into your SocialPilot account, the first thing you need to do is to connect your social profiles. To do this, click on “Connect Account” on the left panel under Social Accounts.

After you’ve completed connecting a profile, you will now be able to set a schedule for your posts. Please note that the default time zone is set for the United States, so adjust it accordingly to your needs. You can click on the “Edit” button to select your desired time zone on the next page.

To revisit setting a schedule, click on Manage Accounts on the left pane. Then, click on “Edit” for that account. Now you’re equipped to add a schedule for your social profile.

You can specify the time to add to the posting schedule under “Select Time” option. You can also choose the specific days of the week on which the schedule should be running. Once completed, click on the button displaying “Add Time”. Then, click on “Create Post” on the left pane to start adding posts into your schedule. Now you can start composing your post and adding links.

Once you have created the post, you will find three options in the drop-down menu: Add to Queue, Share Now and Share Next. Add to Queue will add that post to the schedule queue, while Share Now will share the content right then and there.

If you are out of content ideas, you can always use “SocialPilot content discovery” to get your hands on more interesting stories to share on your network. Social Media is the future, it is the place where most interactions take place, and where your content will most likely get noticed. However, you don’t need to be on every platform, just the ones providing the best exposure, and SocialPilot is one of the best tools to do so. But then we have something Special: Sniply

Sniply From link sharing to custom call to action to audience engagement monitoring, Sniply has come a long way in becoming integral to the online marketing process.

The benefits of Sniply are as follows:

Simple Setup and Installation- Sniply is one of those innovations with super-easy interface that involves a simple setup and installation. Great Call-to-Action- You can create a call-to-action for every link you share. The call-to-actions are not only time-sensitive that instill a sense of urgency but are also, interesting, and intriguing that are ultimately valuable to your customers. Compact Links Creation- The link shortener from Sniply is so compact that it lets you put a customized call-to-action on every page you share. When people click on a Sniply-generated URL, the page displays the ‘snip’ with a floating mini-banner which contains your CTA message along with a button that clicks through to the URL of your choice. Social Media Analytics- The platform’s dashboard shows you clicks, conversions, and conversion rates. You can also see your top-performing snips, top websites, and favorites as well. Customizable Free Edition- The free edition of Sniply is greatly customizable, leave alone the paid one. It allows you to change color, style and position of your snips, making them stand out without being irritating.

The real question for beginners to the scene is how to use it to its full potential. That’s what we are about to find out!

Step 1: Go to Sniply. There is an option to sign up for free as you can see below.

The next page will ask you to sign up via Twitter or Facebook or the age-old way of putting your details in. Step 2: Choose any of the plans that suit you. Everyone of them is free for 14 days. The recommendation is that you choose the basic for now as it’s the simplest.

Step 3: Find a content to share on social media platforms and ensure that it is an article/journal/blog that is connected to your occupation or business. Then, copy the URL of this piece to Sniply as shown below.

After you have entered the URL, hit the ‘snip’ button which will customize the URL as per your wish. Click ‘create’ next and then copy the custom URL to be shared on the social media platform of your choice.

* Remember that when you are using Twitter to share, don’t forget to add the handle or name of the writer of the original post. It gives credit where it’s due and ensures that more people see your post. Step 4: Now it is time to set up a call to action through Sniply. On the dashboard, click on ‘Manage’ and then ‘call to action’.

Hit “+ New Call-to-Action” and then select a brand that exists or create one.

Now choose a type for your call-to-action.

Put in the preferred link for the call-to-action and then customize as you wish to be a worthy match for your company/brand.

So start with Sniply today and behold the changes to your social media functions! If you plan or already have Products like E-books or other Digital (or Physical) Products you can set up a successful online shop with Shopify and leverage Sales. So lets see how it works:Shopify

Shopify Shopify’s exceptional capabilities in easily setting up your online shop has cemented its position as one of the most reliable ecommerce platforms out there!

The benefits that you get are:

Round the clock customer support- Shopify is big on customer support. It’s customer support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The response time is fairly instant, which means your business is never on its own. Mobile optimized- All of Shopify’s themes are mobile responsive. The platform also includes a free built-in mobile commerce shopping cart, which means your store looks great on all devices. Availability of SEO tools- Shopify has powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features that will help your website rank higher in search results, so customers can find you easily. Stripe-powered payment gateway- Shopify has integrated with dozens of payment gateways, but also offers its own which is powered by Stripe. If you choose to use the Stripe-powered payment gateway, you will not incur any transaction fees instead, you will benefit from lower credit card fees. User-friendly interface- Shopify has a user-friendly customer front-end and admin backend which provides enhanced navigation options and various tools to help you manage inventory, insert product details, create web pages, track customer details, set up customer accounts, receive payments in various currencies, and much more. App store for addons- Shopify has an app store which provides some free and some paid plugins that seamlessly integrate with the platform and helps you to expand the functionality of your online store. Indeed, with it, your dreams of running an online business has become within your reach and if you learn every option that the platform provides, there is nothing that can prevent you from having your own online shop.

Let’s Start!

1. Sign up to Shopify and then navigate to the Shopify website. Click on the Get Started button.

You need to enter your information, such as the store name, desired password and an email address and finally stating what kind of an online or physical shop you are looking to create.

This is where you put in the information. Ensure that these are all valid and accurate.

2. Customize the appearance of your store and it’s rather easy. Check out the image below. You need to click on the “Add Product” button and then enter all the details pertaining to the product such as price, vendor and description. When you are done, save it.

3. Return to your dashboard and hit the button saying, “Customize the Look of Your Site.” This is an extremely versatile place for changing colours and logos alike!

4. This step involves the selection of a domain and getting your site LIVE.

At the Dashboard, click on “Add a Domain.” Choose one to your liking and proceed to the next step in the process.

5. On the Dashboard, check out the “Payments” button at the left. You may now choose from numerous options such as Stripe, PayPal, etc. and if in doubt, you may also choose Shopify’s personal payment processor that is quite user-friendly. Once you choose one that suits your purpose/requirements, you will be able to receive payments from customers and store them. Once you are satisfied, hit the “Launch Website” button!

So you can use Shopify and have your own successful online venture today! Disclaimer: This is an important note that there are some links above which are affiliate links and if you click on them and decide to purchase something, I shall earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Let me say on record that I have used and experienced the services of this company, and my recommendation is strong as I have found them to be very helpful and useful. My opinion is not based on the commission I make, but because of how reliable I found this to be. You are not compelled to make any decision unless you see fit and feel that they will help you achieve your goal. Check out our shop with all these resources:

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clickbliss · 5 years

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Pig Eat Ball is a bewildering and frankly disgusting game of sportsball

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Pig Eat Ball

Developer: Mommy’s Best Games

Publisher: Mommy’s Best Games

Bizarre, bewildering and frankly disgusting. That’s how I’d describe pretty much any other game from Mommy’s Best Games. Thankfully, they’re also a lot of fun, Pig Eat Ball included.

The trademark Mommy’s Best Games originality is here, with out there mechanics and art. Previously, their games all shared a similar rough, overgrown art style. There were grimy textures that felt as if they’d been melted and reconstituted into ridiculously detailed tableaus.

Pig Eat Ball goes for a more animated vibe, with a lighter hand on textures, more broad strokes of colors and expressive characters. It’s still made up of an absolutely bewildering combination of imagery, but there’s a more confident, less chaotic approach this time.

Not that the chaos is gone, no, no.

While the art goes with a clear, readable style, the mechanics branch into several bizarre takes on the maze running genre. There’s a few basic moves, but how they interact with each level’s layouts and gimmicks gets a lot of mileage out of them.

The princess, a pig in disguise at a tournament held to decide who wins her hand, constantly inhales objects in front of her, which can be spit out in a barf covered state. Holding her breath makes her move slower, and a dash lets her crash through objects and build speed by timing the next two dashes. Inhaling tennis balls increases her size, which prevents her from getting through narrow passages, but might be useful to take down certain obstacles. Oh, and if you inhale a barfed up ball too soon, or get hit, you’ll spew the contents of your stomach.

Things get really chaotic when these basic mechanics play off the environment. At the start I was simply gathering up tennis balls, spitting them into new rooms, and avoiding them as I waited for the gross stuff to roll off the spit up balls. But soon I was puking on bugs to make them puke, losing ghosts in Pac-man mazes, eating their brains, and using my suction to drag balls through mazes to get them to areas where I could gobble em up.

There’s a real madcap, experimental quality to a lot of the stage designs. It’s the kind of game where you look at the stage title to get an idea of what the heck the designer was thinking, then parse the gimmick while trying to avoid the tricks they’ve laid out for you. Then you do it again to get the gold medal.

It’s a familiar loop, and it would be easy to get comfortable with if it wasn’t for how outlandish it gets. It seriously, seriously gets weird. Like, I’ve played a lot of games and seen a lot of weird games, but most of them use familiar, predictable mechanics to direct you. In Pig Eat Ball I’m never quite sure what I’m gonna see next, or what the next stage is gonna have me do. It’s not so scattershot that I find myself lost, but there’s an astounding set of ideas on display.

Within the first stage I was doing careful sneaking missions, fast paced races against the clock, convoluted mazes, and even engaging in battles with bugs where I had to gobble up more balls, catch stars and uh, build a sandwich. Then I topped it off by fighting a giant dragon who was also an accordion.

Describing what you do in Pig Eat Ball really doesn’t do it justice. This is the kind of game that’s bursting with a creative energy that you just sort of have to witness yourself. It’s got the level design sensibility of an arcade game, but with a willingness to recontextualize itself at every turn. I could write another five paragraphs just listing notable stage gimmicks, but you wouldn’t get the same rapid fire nonsense that comes along with each of them.

There really is something wonderful and bizarre about Pig Eat Ball. It’s a refreshing game to take in bite sized stages, often leaving me with a a bemused, and somewhat disgusted, smile.

#pig eat ball #mommy's best games #ps4 #pc #xbox one

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mbaljeetsingh · 7 years

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Create an Intelligent App With Google Cloud Speech and Natural Language APIs

An application that truly understands a natural language is something sci-fi enthusiasts, programmers, and AI researchers have dreamed about for decades. Today, thanks to large advances in machine learning technologies, that dream is closer than ever to becoming a reality. What's more, cloud-based services such as Google Cloud Machine Learning have made those technologies freely available for everyone to use.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use two powerful natural language-oriented APIs offered by the Google Cloud Machine Learning platform: Cloud Speech API and Cloud Natural Language API. By using them together, you can create apps that can handle speech in a variety of widely spoken languages.

Prerequisites

To follow along, you'll need:

Android Studio 2.2 or higher

a Google Cloud Platform account

a device that runs Android 4.4 or higher

1. Why Use These APIs?

An application that can process speech must have the following capabilities:

It must be able to extract individual words from raw audio data.

It must be able to make educated guesses about the grammatical relationships between the words it has extracted.

The Cloud Speech and Cloud Natural Language APIs enable you to add the above capabilities to your Android app in a matter of minutes.

The Cloud Speech API serves as a state-of-the-art speech recognizer that can accurately transcribe speech in over 80 languages. It can also robustly handle regional accents and noisy conditions.

On a similar note, the Cloud Natural Language API is a language processing system that can, with near-human level accuracy, determine the roles words play in sentences given to it. It currently supports ten languages, and it also offers entity and sentiment analysis.

2. Enabling the APIs

Before you use the Speech and Natural Language APIs, you must enable them in the Google Cloud console. So log in to the console and navigate to API Manager > Library.

To enable the Speech API, click on the Speech API link in the Google Cloud Machine Learning section. In the page that opens next, press the Enable button.

Press your browser's back button to return to the previous page.

This time, enable the Natural Language API by clicking on the Natural Language API link and pressing the Enable button on the next page.

You'll need an API key while interacting with the APIs. If you don't have one already, open the Credentials tab, press the Create credentials button, and choose API key.

You'll now see a pop-up displaying your API key. Note it down so you can use it later.

3. Configuring Your Project

Both the APIs are JSON-based and have REST endpoints you can interact with directly using any networking library. However, you can save a lot of time—and also write more readable code—by using the Google API Client libraries available for them. So open the build.gradle file of your project's app module and add the following compile dependencies to it:

compile 'com.google.api-client:google-api-client-android:1.22.0' compile 'com.google.apis:google-api-services-speech:v1beta1-rev336-1.22.0' compile 'com.google.apis:google-api-services-language:v1beta2-rev6-1.22.0' compile 'com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305:2.0.1'

Additionally, we'll be performing a few file I/O operations in this tutorial. To simplify them, add a compile dependency for the Commons IO library.

compile 'commons-io:commons-io:2.5'

Lastly, don't forget to request for the INTERNET permission in the AndroidManifest.xml file. Without it, your app won't be able to connect to Google's servers.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

4. Using the Cloud Speech API

It goes without saying that the Cloud Speech API expects audio data as one of its inputs. Therefore, we'll now be creating an Android app that can transcribe audio files.

To keep it simple, we'll only be transcribing FLAC files, files that use the Free Lossless Audio Codec encoding format. You might already have such files on your device. If you don't, I suggest you download a few from Wikimedia Commons.

Step 1: Create a Layout

Our app's layout will have a Button widget users can press to display a file picker, an interface where they can browse through and select audio files available on their devices.

The layout will also have a TextView widget to display the transcript of the selected audio file. Accordingly, add the following code to your activity's layout XML file:

Step 2: Create a File Picker

The file picker interface should be displayed when the user presses the button we created in the previous step, so associate an OnClickListener object with it. Before you do so, make sure you initialize the button using the findViewById() method.

Button browseButton = (Button)findViewById(R.id.browse_button); browseButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View view) { // More code here } });

With Android's Storage Access Framework, which is available on devices running API level 19 or higher, creating a file picker takes very little effort. All you need to do is create an intent for the ACTION_GET_CONTENT action and pass it to the startActivityForResult() method. Optionally, you can restrict the file picker to display only FLAC files by passing the appropriate MIME type to the setType() method of the Intent object.

Intent filePicker = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT); filePicker.setType("audio/flac"); startActivityForResult(filePicker, 1);

The output of the file picker will be another Intent object containing the URI of the file the user selected. To be able to access it, you must override the onActivityResult() method of your Activity class.

@Override protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) { super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data); if(resultCode == RESULT_OK) { final Uri soundUri = data.getData(); // More code here } }

Step 3: Encode the File

The Cloud Speech API expects its audio data to be in the form of a Base64 string. To generate such a string, you can read the contents of the file the user selected into a byte array and pass it to the encodeBase64String() utility method offered by the Google API Client library.

However, you currently have only the URI of the selected file, not its absolute path. That means that, to be able to read the file, you must resolve the URI first. You can do so by passing it to the openInputStream() method of your activity's content resolver. Once you have access to the input stream of the file, you can simply pass it to the toByteArray() method of the IOUtils class to convert it into an array of bytes. The following code shows you how:

AsyncTask.execute(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { InputStream stream = getContentResolver() .openInputStream(soundUri); byte[] audioData = IOUtils.toByteArray(stream); stream.close(); String base64EncodedData = Base64.encodeBase64String(audioData); // More code here } }

As you can see in the above code, we are using a new thread to run all the I/O operations. Doing so is important in order to make sure that the app's UI doesn't freeze.

Step 4: Play the File

In my opinion, playing the sound file that is being transcribed, while it is being transcribed, is a good idea. It doesn't take much effort, and it improves the user experience.

You can use the MediaPlayer class to play the sound file. Once you point it to the URI of the file using its setDataSource() method, you must call its prepare() method to synchronously prepare the player. When the player is ready, you can call its start() method to start playing the file.

Additionally, you must remember to release the player's resources once it has completed playing the file. To do so, assign an OnCompletionListener object to it and call its release() method. The following code shows you how:

MediaPlayer player = new MediaPlayer(); player.setDataSource(MainActivity.this, soundUri); player.prepare(); player.start(); // Release the player player.setOnCompletionListener( new MediaPlayer.OnCompletionListener() { @Override public void onCompletion(MediaPlayer mediaPlayer) { mediaPlayer.release(); } });

Step 5: Synchronously Transcribe the File

At this point, we can send the Base64-encoded audio data to the Cloud Speech API to transcribe it. But first, I suggest that you store the API key you generated earlier as a member variable of your Activity class.

private final String CLOUD_API_KEY = "ABCDEF1234567890";

To be able to communicate with the Cloud Speech API, you must create a Speech object using a Speech.Builder instance. As arguments, its constructor expects an HTTP transport and a JSON factory. Additionally, to make sure that the API key is included in every HTTP request to the API, you must associate a SpeechRequestInitializer object with the builder and pass the key to it.

The following code creates a Speech object using the AndroidJsonFactory class as the JSON factory and the NetHttpTransport class as the HTTP transport:

Speech speechService = new Speech.Builder( AndroidHttp.newCompatibleTransport(), new AndroidJsonFactory(), null ).setSpeechRequestInitializer( new SpeechRequestInitializer(CLOUD_API_KEY)) .build();

The Cloud Speech API must be told what language the audio file contains. You can do so by creating a RecognitionConfig object and calling its setLanguageCode() method. Here's how you configure it to transcribe American English only:

RecognitionConfig recognitionConfig = new RecognitionConfig(); recognitionConfig.setLanguageCode("en-US");

Additionally, the Base64-encoded string must be wrapped in a RecognitionAudio object before it can be used by the API.

RecognitionAudio recognitionAudio = new RecognitionAudio(); recognitionAudio.setContent(base64EncodedData);

Next, using the RecognitionConfig and RecognitionAudio objects, you must create a SyncRecognizeRequest object. As its name suggests, it allows you to create an HTTP request to synchronously transcribe audio data. Once the object has been created, you can pass it as an argument to the syncrecognize() method and call the resulting Speech.SpeechOperations.Syncrecognize object's execute() method to actually execute the HTTP request.

The return value of the execute() method is a SyncRecognizeResponse object, which may contain several alternative transcripts. For now, we'll be using the first alternative only.

// Create request SyncRecognizeRequest request = new SyncRecognizeRequest(); request.setConfig(recognitionConfig); request.setAudio(recognitionAudio); // Generate response SyncRecognizeResponse response = speechService.speech() .syncrecognize(request) .execute(); // Extract transcript SpeechRecognitionResult result = response.getResults().get(0); final String transcript = result.getAlternatives().get(0) .getTranscript();

Finally, to display the transcript to the user, you can pass it to the TextView widget. Of course, because changes to the user interface must always happen on the UI thread, make sure you do so after calling your activity's runOnUiThread() method.

runOnUiThread(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { TextView speechToTextResult = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.speech_to_text_result); speechToTextResult.setText(transcript); } });

You can now run your app, select a FLAC file containing speech in American English, and see the Cloud Speech API generate a transcript for it.

It's worth mentioning that the Cloud Speech API can currently process only single-channel audio files. If you send a file with multiple channels to it, you will get an error response.

5. Using the Cloud Natural Language API

Now that we have a transcript, we can pass it to the Cloud Natural Language API to analyze it. To keep this tutorial short, we'll only be running entity and sentiment analysis on the transcript. In other words, we are going to determine all the entities that are mentioned in the transcript, such as people, places, and professions, and also tell if its overall sentiment is negative, neutral, or positive.

Step 1: Update the Layout

To allow the user to start the analysis, our layout must contain another Button widget. Therefore, add the following code to your activity's layout XML file:

Step 2: Annotate the Transcript

The Cloud Natural Language REST API offers a convenience option called annotateText that allows you to run both sentiment and entity analysis on a document with just one HTTP request. We'll be using it to analyze our transcript.

Because the analysis must begin when the user presses the button we created in the previous step, add an OnClickListener to it.

Button analyzeButton = (Button)findViewById(R.id.analyze_button); analyzeButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View view) { // More code here } });

To interact with the API using the Google API Client library, you must create a CloudNaturalLanguage object using the CloudNaturalLanguage.Builder class. Its constructor also expects an HTTP transport and a JSON factory.

Furthermore, by assigning a CloudNaturalLanguageRequestInitializer instance to it, you can force it to include your API key in all its requests.

final CloudNaturalLanguage naturalLanguageService = new CloudNaturalLanguage.Builder( AndroidHttp.newCompatibleTransport(), new AndroidJsonFactory(), null ).setCloudNaturalLanguageRequestInitializer( new CloudNaturalLanguageRequestInitializer(CLOUD_API_KEY) ).build();

All the text you want to analyze using the API must be placed inside a Document object. The Document object must also contain configuration information, such as the language of the text and whether it is formatted as plain text or HTML. Accordingly, add the following code:

String transcript = ((TextView)findViewById(R.id.speech_to_text_result)) .getText().toString(); Document document = new Document(); document.setType("PLAIN_TEXT"); document.setLanguage("en-US"); document.setContent(transcript);

Next, you must create a Features object specifying the features you are interested in analyzing. The following code shows you how to create a Features object that says you want to extract entities and run sentiment analysis only.

Features features = new Features(); features.setExtractEntities(true); features.setExtractDocumentSentiment(true);

You can now use the Document and Features objects to compose an AnnotateTextRequest object, which can be passed to the annotateText() method to generate an AnnotateTextResponse object.

final AnnotateTextRequest request = new AnnotateTextRequest(); request.setDocument(document); request.setFeatures(features); AsyncTask.execute(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { AnnotateTextResponse response = naturalLanguageService.documents() .annotateText(request).execute(); // More code here } }

Note that we are generating the response in a new thread because network operations aren't allowed on the UI thread.

You can extract a list of entities from the AnnotateTextResponse object by calling its getEntities() method. Similarly, you can extract the overall sentiment of the transcript by calling the getDocumentSentiment() method. To get the actual score of the sentiment, however, you must also call the getScore() method, which returns a float.

As you might expect, a sentiment score equal to zero means the sentiment is neutral, a score greater than zero means the sentiment is positive, and a score less than zero means the sentiment is negative.

What you do with the list of entities and the sentiment score is, of course, up to you. For now, let's just display them both using an AlertDialog instance.

final List<Entity> entityList = response.getEntities(); final float sentiment = response.getDocumentSentiment().getScore(); runOnUiThread(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { String entities = ""; for(Entity entity:entityList) { entities += "\n" + entity.getName().toUpperCase(); } AlertDialog dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(MainActivity.this) .setTitle("Sentiment: " + sentiment) .setMessage("This audio file talks about :" + entities) .setNeutralButton("Okay", null) .create(); dialog.show(); } });

With the above code, the sentiment score will be displayed in the title of the dialog, and the list of entities will be displayed in its body.

If you run the app now, you should be able to analyze the content of audio files, as well as transcribing them.

Conclusion

You now know how to use the Cloud Speech and Cloud Natural Language APIs together to create an Android app that can not only transcribe an audio file but also run entity and sentiment analysis on it. In this tutorial, you also learned how to work with Android's Storage Access Framework and Google Client API libraries.

Google has been regularly adding new and interesting features—along with support for more languages—to both the APIs. To stay updated about them, do refer to the official documentation.

And while you're here, check out some of our other posts on mobile app cloud services and machine learning!

Android SDK

Serverless Apps With Firebase Cloud Functions

Chike Mgbemena

Android Things

Android Things and Machine Learning

Paul Trebilcox-Ruiz

Android SDK

How to Use Google Cloud Machine Learning Services for Android

Ashraff Hathibelagal

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