As I have written before, I keep 2 Twitter identities, one of which is one of our brands, Wrox.  The identities are distinctly different, but both “me” – @chriswebb is Chris Webb, editor who talks about publishing, social applications and their occasional intersection.  @wrox is still Chris Webb, editor, but the conversation focuses on programming, web development, .NET and other topics of interest to Wrox readers.

Why keep them separate?  Well, followers of @wrox may not care at all about what @chriswebb has to say about social media and publishing in general, while @chriswebb followers probably are not interested in the latest ASP.NET MVC release.  It is not obvious to @wrox followers that it is Chris Webb behind the username (although I don’t really hide that fact,) and I don’t think they care.  To them it’s just Wrox – a source of programming books and online content.

I touched on this subject briefly via Twitter earlier today, and got an intersting comment from a follower of both @wrox and @chriswebb:

@wrox is fundamentally different than, say, @mcdonalds or @tylenol
@wrox has the ability to gather a community (in this case developers) into one, big conversation. it’s a great experiment.

But back to Shel’s point – is Wrox being social or is it all just Chris Webb?  Is part of what defines the Wrox brand already social?  What do you think?

The first of these new products is ASP3Wiki, and is best summarized by this post on Jim Mintel’s blog.

Wrox’s ASP3Wiki is the complete contents of one of the best-selling web programming books ever, Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0, free, online, in wiki format. Why? Well, we know from our traffic on p2p.wrox.com that ASP 3.0 is still a widely used web platform, even today 8 years after it debuted. Think about that: how many web programming tools are still in as widespread use as ASP 3 is 8 years after they launch? So, even though the sales of the paper book finally slowed to a tricked about 12 months ago, we know there’s still demand out there for this information and we’ve decided (along with the blessings of the lead authors thank you Dave Sussman, Jon Duckett, and Chris Ullman!) to make this freely available on this wiki.

This is just one of several e-content experiments we are working on in our Wrox brand.  If feedback is positive on ASP3Wiki, we plan to roll out additional wikis on current topics, perhaps consider bundles with printed books and wiki access and so forth.

If you feel this format works for you, let us know. We want to build product you want and want to hear from you.

So, what are Wrox Blox?

• DRM-free
• PDF format
• Bite-sized (generally 20-40 pages)
• Faster to market than traditional books
• Introductory priced at only $3.99 US

The initial roll out consists of 4 titles, with many more in the works to be available shortly. Beginning today you can purchase and instantly download:

• iPhone and iPod touch Programming : Handling Touch Interactions and Events for Mobile Safari
• Silverlight 1.0 Animation
• Leveraging LINQ in ASP.NET 3.5 Projects
• Building a Photo Gallery with Adobe AIR

Hopefully we have responded to customer needs with a great new product. What do you think? Is this type of publishing the right direction? How can we improve Wrox Blox?

Wrox author

If you are a programmer who is not reading Scott’s blog you are missing out on a great resource.

Many technology publishers have adopted a series strategy, and every book in that series looks more or less the same.  For example in For Dummies Tech, you can pretty much assume every cover looks pretty much like the others – black and yellow.  The series look and feel is very much a part of the overall branding, which hopefully makes the books immediately recognizable to the consumer.   99% of our Wrox titles looks exactly like the others save the Author’s photos.

D’Arcy from Winnipeg  says if publishers were smart we would put tasty treats on the covers of our books.

However, if you look at the bestseller lists at Amazon.com you will see that most of the titles are not part of any series or brand. Today, 13 of Amazon.com Top 25 Computers and Internet titles are not books from any series.  These “one-off” titles have very distinct and unique covers.

What does this say about series publishing?  One might argue that readers buy books on their individual merit regardless of any series affiliation.  But does that mean a really great book – one that would be a bestseller if it were a “one-off” – gets unnoticed if it’s part of a series?  Does a bad experience with a series book turn readers off for good?

What say you?  What role does a book series have in your buying decision?

Photo credit: QuantanaRoo 

The update includes bug fixes, all samples now compile on both XNA Versions and on Windows (XP and Vista) and Xbox 360.  In addition, Ben also included new support for some older ATI video cards because he’s cool like that.

Thanks to everyone for the great reviews and comments about the book, which continues to be a best seller at Amazon.com.  If you have not had a chance to post your review at Amazon, we hope you will, and appreciate your support.

Its great to see all the conversation about the book over at the Microsoft XNA forums.  I want to encourage everyone to post book-specific questions at the P2P forum at wrox.com as well so we can be sure to respond to everyone’s queries and suggestions.

I would also love to see reader’s creations, hacks and mods they created using the book.  Feel free to post links to your games at the book’s forum at wrox.com.

Jason Alexander
CTO, Telligent
Creators of Community Server

From the back cover:

Built on the .NET 2.0 platform, Telligent’s Community Server allows web developers to implement a robust community site where users can share, discuss, and interact in very powerful ways. With its open API and available source code, Community Server is customizable using available 3rd party modules, or you can write your own code to extend Community Server’s functionality.

Inside this book, our Community Server experts guide you through the product’s implementation and customization and will get you started with your first community site quickly. You’ll learn methods for UI modification and enhancement, how to add new functionality through modules, and how to write your own custom module code. You’ll also get tried-and-true advice for administering your Community Server site, creating reports, implementing security, building localized installations, and more.

What you will learn from this book

• Techniques for troubleshooting installation issues
• How to understand and customize Community Server’s ASP.NET config files
• Tips for installing and configuring modules on your site
• Methods for enhancing your implementation with themes, modules, and add-ons
• How to write modules and modify Community Server code
• All about implementing skins, changing the look of custom controls, working with master pages, and more

Who this book is for

This book is for both experienced developers and general enthusiasts who are interested in building their site using Community Server. You should have prior experience in web server management and configuration.

Readers who wish to extend and customize Community Server should have previous experience with ASP.NET and related .NET technologies.

Benjamin Nitschke

Amazingly the project was completed in just over a month, though you wouldn’t know it to look at or play it: Nitschke believes it to be one of the the best-looking XNA games available today.

I agree, and the game play is great. Once the book publishes next month we will release the source code for all 6 games:

XNA Pong
Tetris clone
Rocket Commander XNA
Space Shooter
Racing Game
Speedy Racer