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SALT LAKE CITY -- The author of the impossibly successful "Harry Potter" series announced details regarding her enigmatic and much-hyped new website, "Pottermore," early on June 23 via Youtube and a press conference.
"Pottermore" comes complete with new e-book editions of the series, new info on Potter's magical realm, and new puzzles to be solved by fans, which may even spill over into the muggle world.
With cleverly coordinated marketing, this announcements comes just weeks before the hugely anticipated final "Harry Potter" film will be released worldwide.
Same story, new stuff
"Pottermore" is supposed to provide a way for fans to read the stories in a uniquely digital format.
And we're not only talking e-books here - apparently the experience will be highly interactive, allowing site subscribers to participate in the stories. Or so Rowling says.
"[It's] the same story with a few crucial additions."
Users will be sorted into houses, they can gain house points, go though what looks a lot like quests, all while learning various heretofore unknown details about the Harry Potter world - for instance, what questions the Sorting Hat asks - which is how you get put into a house in the first place.
As of right now, the site is only taking emails so potential users can be notified of its official release date, slated to be in October.
The site will also include an online shopping element where users can download audiobooks, and for the first time, e-books as well. Rowling has long resisted allowing digital versions of the "Harry Potter" series, but has finally relented.
Nevertheless, this site will be the exclusive distributor of the e-book versions - so don't bother looking on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. She says that they will be compatible with all popular e-readers, though.
It is also possible that the site will be a delivery mechanism for future products.
Is it a game?
"Pottermore" sounds an awful lot like a game, but in the YouTube announcement, the press release, and the press conference, Rowling resisted calling the website a game. Aside from some buzzword-sounding phrases like "online reading experience," she seemed to talk about it more like a book you could walk through and get more directly involved with.
Still, press photos from the site have phrases like "PhoenixWing_8760 has just started the Chamber of Secrets," which seems to indicate quests based around the events of the series, much like an MMORPG, which quests users must complete in order to advance to other areas.
Rowling grounded the whole endeavor as a way to "give back" to the fans. This apparently means several things - that fans can contribute to the site through comments, submitted drawings, ideas, and who knows how else.
"Pottermore will be built in part by you," Rowling said.
Rowling said she'll be "sharing additional information I've been hording for years," and has also written totally new material exclusively for the site with. What exactly that means is still unclear. The only way to get at those new nuggets of magical material is to play along, come October.
Mysteries wrapped in enigmas - all for your entertainment
In the announcement, Rowling stated that a few fans will be able to join the website and participate before its October opening, provided they drop by the site on July 31 for more details.
There seems to be a puzzle involved, however.
"Simply follow the owl," are the last words spoken on the YouTube announcement. There's no telling what that might entail, but it is sure to involve lots of digging around the internet, and possibly digging around the actual world.
On June 22, a memo was leaked, supposedly by accident, to the "Times UK," which referred to "Pottermore" not only as a game, but one with at least some elements in the real world. According to the "Times," there may be "an unstated number of magic wands secreted in Britain and America, and possibly other countries."
Solving elaborate puzzles will continue a big part of the new experience.
From the start, the entire project has had a conscious air of mystery surrounding it, and has relied heavily on clues scattered all over the web, much like the announcement of the video game Portal 2.
Finding the "Pottermore" website before the official announcement of the project required visiting ten different websites, some of them fan sites unofficially associated with Rowling, as well as twitter feeds which contained coordinates that were to be entered at a special website, secretstreetview.com. These coordinates pointed to Google street view pictures with letters superimposed on them that revealed small details of either the series or Rowling herself. All ten such clues spelled out "Pottermore."
