Thursday, June 23, 2011

News: Pottermore

For one whole week, Harry Potter fans couldn't keep their eyes away from the mysteriously signed site by JK Rowling herself with the title of Pottermore, Coming Soon. When you clicked on one of the owls, it directed you to a YouTube page that was brilliantly done:

(If you moved the cursor towards the owls, they'll shake their little heads, as if saying "I'm not telling!". The daunting owls with the caption of "The owls are gathering...Find out why soon" alongside a countdown was one amazing idea of getting us all hyped up)

Many speculations were going on about this. What I, and many others have hoped for was an encyclopaedia. One that has all the related info we need about the magical world Rowling created. Today however, at 3:00 PM local time, the video played of Rowling making her long-awaited announcement.



Pottermore, as it turned out, is an online experience to read, interact with and share the Harry Potter stories. More from The Leaky Cauldron website:

  • Pottermore is an interactive new Web site and reading experience with more than 18,000 new words from J.K. Rowling: Much more to come.
  • JKR behind the scenes filming the video picture.
  • An online experience to read, interact with and share the Harry Potter stories. Exclusive writing from J.K. Rowling and more.
  • Pottermore will feature infromation J.K. Rowling has been "hoarding" for years about Harry Potter.
  • Pottermore will be the exclusive place to purchase the digital audio books and, at last, eBooks of the Harry Potter series.
  • One million fans will get access to a beta on July 31, Harry's birthday. It will be open for all in October 2011.
  • The launch of Pottermore will have more than 18,000 words from J.K. Rowling, but that is only a third of what she has written so far.
  • J.K. Rowling said this morning that there is a lot more content to come for the Pottermore site, and she will develop it as it grows.

I understand how good of a news this is, to keep the Harry Potter name alive in the digital era and all that but I don't get why we would have to wait this long. The dates are July 31 and October, why not just announce it once?

So, what do you think of this? Did it live up to your expectations? And what were your previous guesses? Is there any hope for Potterheads to get an encyclopedia after all?

6 comments:

  1. I am not a particular Potter fan but it does seem mad to have to two dates - why not just make it all available at the same time - waiting until October seems mad - my son is a big Potter fan, but I won't tell him about this until nearer the time or else he'll get totally fed up waiting.

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  2. ^ He's better off not knowing :) You should get him to come visit us and join our discussions here at OBM since we're reading The Deathly Hallows.

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  4. I came across TheWeek's article on OBM this morning. Way to go Maryam and team!

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  5. I'm disappointed tb.
    I expected something bigger :/

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