Two weeks ago on April 15, Charlie Redmayne, CEO of Pottermore, spoke at the London Book Fair’s Digital Minds Conference. It was only a day after the public launch of Pottermore, so it was the first time that Charlie Redmayne could spill all the beans – at least some of them.
During the conference, Redmayne talked about a lot of different topics, with probably the most interesting being the statistics and the future of the site. We’ve highlighted some of the key points, which can be read below. To hear his whole speech, you can listen below:
(We bolded the most interesting parts)
- Pottermore is separated into 2 parts: the Pottermore experience and the Pottermore shop.
- J.K. Rowling created a deep and broad world, and the books are only a ‘very narrow corridor’ of the world of Harry Potter.
- 97% of beta users looked at every single page of the site and content.
- Average Pottermore user spent (spends) 47 minutes on the site.
- When Charlie came on board, there was massive re-platforming that needed to be done. The site needed to adapt to the large amount of traffic it would be receiving.
- Chose the time of 8:15am GMT to open the site very quietly, with most of America and UK still in bed on a Saturday morning. The CEO had a quick chat with the booksellers, then let the press-release go out.
- New books in line over the next few weeks and months.
- Fans mostly come to the site to read J.K. Rowling’s new content
- A lot more functionalities – like wizard dueling – are to come
- Over the next few weeks they will be switching their focus from platform issues to content issues, in which the site is going to get ‘incredibly exciting’ and his job will become ‘much more exciting.’ He also commented that the site will get ‘better and better and better’
- Over the coming weeks you will see more of J.K. Rowling’s content and books ‘fly by’
- New interactives and community functionalities will be added in the coming weeks as well.
- Redmayne commented that although he thought Pottermore isn’t amazing yet, like the books, films and games are, the site needs to be amazing, and shall be.
- Could be seeing ‘enhanced’ ebooks coming down the line in the next year. Redmayne wants the shop to become the ‘essential hub for all things Harry Potter’
- He is constantly thinking about a digital future for Harry Potter on all platforms – tablets, phones, etc. He thinks that they should be thinking about what they can do on Facebook and YouTube
As you can see, the CEO spoke a lot about the future of Pottermore and what lies in store for the site. It is unclear whether he actually meant that new books would be coming in the next few weeks, as it seems highly unlikely. But, if Pottermore was ready to release the book in early 2012 back in October, then perhaps they are ready to release it.
Charlie Redmayne will also be speaking at an upcoming conference in New York called paidContent: At the Crossroads on May 23.
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