Some ‘time sensitive news’ Potter Philes will be interested in:
- ‘Alice at ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ writes to share the news that PotterMore will finally open its doors to all comers next month. – And —
- Potter-Ize It! Sharing the Magic of Fan Culture: A meeting of Potter Fandom minds is taking place in public today at Austin’s Show of Shows’ — ‘South by Southwest Interactive — in a panel discussion featuring the lead players at The Leaky Cauldron, MuggleNet, and Harry Potter Educational Fan-On (the folks who sponsor the conferences we know and love). Lisa Bunker of AccioQuotes was the mastermind behind the scenes.
Read the press releases beneath jump!
On Pottermore? April is the opening date — April Fool’s Day? We’ll see!
Waiting for Pottermore?
We’re pleased to announce that pottermore.com will be open to everyone in early April 2012.
We know that the extended wait for those wishing to be part of Pottermore has been frustrating, and we’d like to thank you all for your patience so far.
Many of you are interested to know why we extended the original opening date beyond October of last year.
We always knew Pottermore would be incredibly popular, which is why we made the decision to only open to one million Beta users to begin with. We wanted to make sure that we had a really good understanding of how people want to use the site and which bits we’d need to modify before giving more people access.
We gathered some incredibly useful feedback from our Beta users, and it became clear that our original platform wouldn’t be suitable when millions more users came on to the site. So we made a big decision: to move Pottermore to an entirely different platform set up. This ‘invisible’ change has involved a lot of work behind the scenes but it will enable our users to get the best from Pottermore as it grows and develops.
There have definitely been some challenges and the whole Pottermore team has been working really hard to incorporate all the Beta activity and feedback. This means that over the coming weeks and months we’ll be adding exclusive content and many more exciting features (such as sounds) to Pottermore for you to explore, share and discover.
So get ready to join the Pottermore journey – the wait is nearly over.
SXSW Interactive panel of Potter Heavyweights:
Pottermore. MuggleNet. The Leaky Cauldron. Huge conferences like Infinitus 2010 and LeakyCon 2011. What makes Potter fan communities thrive? Is the success simply due to the size of the fandom, or is there real magic happening? Melissa Anelli (LeakyCon, Leaky Cauldron, LeakyNews), Andrew Sims (Hypable, MuggleNet, Twilight Source), and Heidi Tandy (HPEF/Ascendio, FictionAlley) will share insider knowledge on creating vibrant online and “In Real Life” communities and events. Social Media Librarian Lisa Bunker (Pima County Library) will deconstruct Potterverse methodologies, with an emphasis on ways other organizations can build and Potterize their own “fanbase” to bring the magic home. With moderator Brenda Huettner (P-N Designs), they’ll discuss how to spark new fires, continually adapt to new tools and media, capture attention and encourage participation, and remain fresh in a fickle realm.
Hate that I missed this. Anybody know if there’s a podcast/webcast/video/ transcript/etc of the event?