Pottermore.com temporarily taken offline, set for release in early April!

Earlier this week, on Monday, Pottermore Insider
revealed that Pottermore will be undergoing final
improvements and bug fixes in preperation for
the official launch, which has been confirmed
to take place sometime early next month.

Here was the official announcement
 from the Pottermore Insider staff:

"As planned, pottermore.com is now offline 
for approximately one week. 

We’re making some technical updates in order to 
ready the site for its opening in early April. 

We’ll let you know here and on Twitter page as soon as they’re complete." 

Looks like Pottermore is nearing the final days of beta,
and will soon be launched worldwide to the public.

The one question remaining is:
What will Pottermore's release mean for the future of Harry Potter?
Will it be the thing to keep the fandom alive and thriving for the next few years,
or will it end up being the thing that destroys it?

New pics of Harry Potter studio tour released online!

 

Over the course of this past week,
new information has been rapidly released online
about the upcoming "Making of Harry Potter"
studio tour, which takes place in the studio
in which HP films were filmed.

The top left picture featured here is a model
of Hogwarts Castle, which was likely originally
created by the films' set designer, Stuart Craig.

The second picture to the left, below the first,
is a image of visitors entering the building,
with the giant "Making of Harry Potter" sign
overhead.

Next is another view of the Hogwarts castle model,
this one bringing out more clearly,
the green coloring featured in many
parts of the structure.

The image below it is a collection of man-built
character models, which are used to help the
CGI department re-create the characters digitally.

The characters featured there include,

but are not limited to: Dobby, Griphook, Crookshanks,

(Hermione's cat,) and a mermaid.

Finally, the two bottom images include a snapshot of

the Knight Bus, and a beautiful view of Diagon Alley,

with lights looking down on all the various wizarding shops.

If these images are just a sneak peek at what will await the

Harry Potter fans that will soon enter the building,

"The Making of Harry Potter" will certainly prove itself

to be a truely magical experience.

Pottermore release date announced! Pottermore coming April 2012!

The wait is almost over!
The official release date for Pottermore.com,
J.K. Rowling's virtual interactive online experience,
has been slated for an April 2012 digital release.

Although it still is unclear on what day in April
on which Pottermore will reveal itself,
the news will be a great relief to the HP fandom.


This was the official announcement issued by Pottermore Insider:
"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." 

We'll announce any additional news when it becomes available,
which can only be a matter of time.

Harry Potter: The Definitive Edition now available for pre-order on amazon.com!

The long anticipated collector's edition for the Harry Potter
films, "Harry Potter: The Definitive Edition", has just been
made available for pre-order on amazon.com .

Many new exclusive special features have been announced
to be attached to this collection, that fans have not seen
before, like "bloopers", something that the HP filmmakers
have said would be included here.

Other things like HP movie concept art,
multiple collectible memorabilia items, and much more.

Here are the official details, courtesy of amazon.com:

*Contains 31 discs, inclusive of all content ever previously released, 

in addition to over 5 hours of never before seen special features, 
in a limited and numbered edition.

*18 movie discs:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Theatrical Version and Extended Cut

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Theatrical Version and Extended Cut

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 2D and 3D Versions

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 2D and 3D Versions

 

*13 Special Feature discs

*Multiple specially-produced, collectable memorabilia items, 

including concept art, a Map of Hogwarts and much more!

The listed price for the Definitive Edition on amazon.com is $349.99 .

Although there is indeed a ton of additional content included in this set,
the question remains: Is the Definitive Edition worth the incredibly high price?

Harry Potter books to be released as e-books exclusively for select schools and libraries!

According to an announcement made on Monday
by OverDrive Inc., a major distributor for both school
and library markets, an agreement between
J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore website and OverDrive
has been made, which will allow downloads of the
HP books to be available for
students and library patrons.

The mega-selling series will be available
to more than 18,000 schools and libraries,
in more than 20 languages.

This statement was issued in the original announcement made by OverDrive:

"Through local public library and school catalogs, OverDrive's digital book lending service 
will promote to new and returning readers a popular way to access  the official 
Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks.  

The Harry Potter series has sold over 400 million copies worldwide and is widely credited with immersing an entire generation of young readers into books and reading.  
With this agreement, the seven books in the series will be available in digital formats 
for the first time for lending from public and school libraries." 


OverDrive CEO and President Steve Potash said, in response to the news:  
"J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter is a once-a-lifetime phenomenon and has been an extremely significant catalyst for reading and literacy for current and future generations.  We are honoured to bring this beloved storytelling experience digitally to public and school libraries  worldwide."


Supported devices include Sony® Reader, Kindle® (US only), NOOK™, iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phones and tablets, BlackBerry®, and Windows® Phone.  In addition to the eBook collection, the complete digital audiobooks will be made available for digital borrowing in the MP3 file format on listening devices such as computers, smartphones and iPod®.