Sunday, July 31, 2011

Pottermore: Day One

Yes, I am a geek.

Or at least a really big fan. I've loved the Harry Potter books for a long time, but this opening of the Pottermore site comes just at the height of a big HP summer for me. My son is finally reading the books, but he is doing it by reading AND listening to the brilliant audiobooks recorded by Jim Dale. And because some of that reading has been done on long trips, or just in the house, while this miserable heat wave made it too yucky to be outside, I've been listening too. And re-reading.

Then there was the final movie, The Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Even though he had only read through the 4th book by opening weekend, my son and I re-watched all 7 of the previous movies, getting ready for the last. [Yes, I own them all. Doesn't everyone?]

So was it any wonder that I ended up obsessively checking a website for half the night?

Jumped onto Twitter - which I only seem to do for book contests - and heard that something would be released at 8:00 a.m. English time. Just 2:00 a.m. my time, I've stayed up that late before. But when 2 came and went, and the tweets changed to "it will be sometime after 8," I headed to bed.

Woke up at 7:41 to this screen.


GRRRRR!!!

Near as I can figure, it went live about 11:00 in England, which would have been 5:00 here. But the time is supposed to change every day. I will not give up.

While I was waiting, I surfed around. Pottermore has its own official blog, and is posting information about the challenge. And I found someone who blogged about getting accepted, with lots of cool screen shots. If you want to know what it's like, read this.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

July 31st! Happy Birthday, Harry and Jo!

In case you weren't aware, July 31st is the birthday of Harry Potter, and of his creator, J.K. Rowling. It is also the day set for one million fans to get the chance to enter the new Pottermore site early. I started checking the site at 6:06 p.m. local time (that's 12:06 a.m. London time). This is what I found.


After more than 2 hours, there started to be some chatter on Twitter that some were getting into the site.


I took this screenshot when I got to the same place myself, a few minutes later.

This is exactly why reading in the 21st Century is more exciting than it was when I was 11!

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If you would like to read more about what is going on, there is a Geek.com article here, and another article on ScienceFiction.com.