'Harry Potter' site Pottermore to launch in early April, six months after scheduled opening

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Published on March 8, 2012 09:28PM EST

Pottermore, the much-anticipated Harry Potter website that’s part social media, part interactive reading experience, will finally be open for all users in early April.

The site was announced last year, with beta testing beginning in the fall and a scheduled launch in October. However, as more users were invited into the open test, it became apparent that the site was far from ready to open as planned.

A statement on the site’s official blog said that after gathering feedback from users, “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.”

EW’s Keith Staskiewicz previewed his first impressions of Pottermore last summer, prior to the heavy delays. As someone who stayed up late to gain access to the beta testing last August, I personally can attest that the site certainly had its flaws, namely a lack of activities that ensured frequent visiting and longevity for the site, but my fingers are crossed that the exhaustive revamp will address some of the site’s glaring issues and get us back to the thoroughly engaging Potter experience we so anticipated.

ShelfLifers, did you get an early invite to Pottermore? What were your thoughts? What sort of changes do you think are in store with this new revamp?

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