Pottermore: J.K. Rowling Announces New Reading Material And Online Destination, Harry Potter

The speculation is over, muggles: Pottermore has arrived, and as we guessed, it's an online experience featuring brand new "Harry Potter" material.

That's right — brand new. They aren't calling this Pottermore without a reason!

J.K. Rowling finally unveiled the full extent of her newest project in a press announcement today, revealing Pottermore as a free-to-use website that will feature "extensive new material about the characters, places and objects in the much-loved stories," all written by Rowling. It sounds like the vast majority, if not all of this material, is intended to supplement the "Potter" stories as they already exist, rather than create brand new stories all unto themselves. In other words, this appears to be Rowling's long awaited "Potter" encyclopedia, but in an online and interactive form.

But there are other features on Pottermore besides new reading material, including an online shop (where registered users can purchase exclusively the "Harry Potter" eBooks), new illustrations, and interactive "Moments," which allow users to "move through the chapters" and experience places like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley firsthand. Exactly how those "moments" are experienced remains unclear just now.

“I wanted to give something back to the fans that have followed Harry so devotedly over the years, and to bring the stories to a new digital generation," Rowling said of Pottermore in a statement. "I hope fans and those new to Harry will have as much fun helping to shape Pottermore as I have. Just as I have contributed to the website, everyone else will be able to join in by submitting their own comments, drawings and other content in a safe and friendly environment – Pottermore has been designed as a place to share the stories with your friends as you journey through the site.”

Pottermore fully launches in October 2011, with registration opening on July 31, Harry's birthday. That day will also feature an online challenge rewarding the first million people to register with early beta-testing access to Pottermore. So wands at the ready, aspiring wizards and witches — there's plenty more "Potter" coming your way, long after both "Deathly Hallows" and (shameless self-promotion alert) the Harry Potter World Cup have ended.

J.K. Rowling Plans Big Harry Potter Announcement Next Week! But What Is it?

  Do you feel that? That frisson of excitement, that magical feeling of antici…pation? Almost exactly one month away from the release of the eighth and final Harry Potter film, J.K. Rowling has created a new website. Named Pottermore—it doesn’t take a linguistic genius to realize that’s an anagram for “More Potter”—it appears to be only the promising words “Coming soon” and Rowling’s signature. Although, if you click on one of the owls framing the page, it takes you to a YouTube account with a countdown clock that teases an announcement from the author which, as of this moment, is exactly 6 days, 14 hours, 11 minutes, and 23 seconds away. Wait, now it’s 22 seconds.

It looks like J.K. is taking a page out of the book of J.J., as the website was found via some good new-fashioned viral marketing. Ten coordinates were given to Harry Potter fan sites which, when combined and plugged into a Google Maps-powered website, yielded the ten letters that spell P-O-T-T-E-R-M-O-R-E. To Potterheads out there who are all set to go into conniptions over the possibility of another novel, you might want to hold off. Scholastic told EW that the announcement will not be a new book.

So what will it be? My guess is one of two things: either a comprehensive, fully immersiveHarry Potter website (which would be awesome) or the revelation that the series will soon be available as e-books, a development that has been a long time coming. What do you guys think? Any other possibilities?