Pottermore: Forget the eBook shop, it's the online universe bit we're interested in

It’s probably not a rival to Facebook, but it is kinda innovative for the publishing industry: JK Rowling’s Pottermore site promises to be a social network cum literary experience with an online store for eBooks built in.

The eBook idea doesn’t exactly wow me, but we are kind of interested by this Harry Potter universe where you can interact with other users and pi

Though, I think it is one for the hardcore fans. I tend to think that the stuff that got cut out of the books was left out for a good reason.

Rowling said:

“Pottermore is a way for the creativity to live on and a way for me to be creative on a platform that did not exist when I started writing the books.”

As one perspicacious commenter on the Mail said:

“interesting that rowling chooses to expand her fictional universe with detail, rather than going down the more financially lucrative route of producing new stories. this has the feel of the way tolkien constantly expanded his middle earth mythology rather than adding new stories to the canon”

We’re with you there Patricia Dow. Anyway, no point getting too excited too quickly. It’s not out properly until October.

However the functionality is already looking a bit dodgy – with the widget supposed to take your email address currently broken – almost certainly due to the high traffic from the announcement.

Anyway..