New survey for Harry Potter books on Pottermore Insider

[SeaKing]

I will be honest and say up front that I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books. I did go to the first 2 movies out of curiosity and because a friend was interested.

I decided that Harry Potter was too cute and silly for me. Now don't get me wrong. I love Kung Fu Panda movies, and those movies with the maniacal psychotic penguins and the zoo animals that go back to the wild. Harry Potter, though, leaves me cringing.

Now with that disclaimer, I will say if you ever think KT Rowling is anything other than a self serving greedy egomaniac that struck it rich, you are deluding yourself. She is just playing to her self serving high brow friends with this pap about paper books, old book stores, and musty libraries being somehow holy.

Remember she owns a castle or two now. She ain't ordinary people no more if she ever was. No way, no how.

[Hellmark]

I've been a Pottermore member for a while now, and I have to say, overall I've been let down by it. I've not actually been on in months, but mostly because when I do try, it gives a message that it is down. Not to mention, the little content that is up is more or less stuff that once you try it, you really can't repeat.

As far as the posts on the Pottermore Insider blog, they've never blamed the fans. So that must be bias added by the writer of the news article. The closest that they've ever said to anything like that, was "Since the launch of the Beta, we’ve seen really high levels of activity, and interaction with the site has been phenomenal." (which doesn't sound like blaming fans to me)

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

I will be honest and say up front that I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books. I did go to the first 2 movies out of curiosity and because a friend was interested.

I decided that Harry Potter was too cute and silly for me. Now don't get me wrong. I love Kung Fu Panda movies, and those movies with the maniacal psychotic penguins and the zoo animals that go back to the wild. Harry Potter, though, leaves me cringing.

Now with that disclaimer, I will say if you ever think KT Rowling is anything other than a self serving greedy egomaniac that struck it rich, you are deluding yourself. She is just playing to her self serving high brow friends with this pap about paper books, old book stores, and musty libraries being somehow holy.

Remember she owns a castle or two now. She ain't ordinary people no more if she ever was. No way, no how.

How on earth can you possibley make such a statement when you admit you know nothing about the woman?? You're simply crucifying her because she has money & made good. Wow! Unbelievable.

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Now with that disclaimer, I will say if you ever think KT Rowling is anything other than a self serving greedy egomaniac that struck it rich, you are deluding yourself. She is just playing to her self serving high brow friends with this pap about paper books, old book stores, and musty libraries being somehow holy.

Remember she owns a castle or two now. She ain't ordinary people no more if she ever was. No way, no how.

This is... biased, to say the least. Apparently you don't like HP, and you don't like rich people, so JK Rowling must be the wicked witch of the west.

That's not to say that I agree with her flimsy excuses regarding HP ebooks, though...

[anamardoll]

Good grief, I really wish I could give ProfCrash ALL my karma. That was awesome.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

***Lots of Stuff***

I almost feel like we should start a slow-clap for this, as it was marvelous.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by citac

Do you have a link to that article? I'd like to read it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...launch-delayed

A cabal of brawling virtual wizards has overwhelmed JK Rowling's Pottermore, forcing the website to temporarily remove a popular duelling game and pushing the launch of the Harry Potter ebooks back until 2012.

The fans are "forcing" the website to remove a game and push back the books. Nice.

As I said, though, the spin may be the fault of the article writer.

[citac]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...launch-delayed

The fans are "forcing" the website to remove a game and push back the books. Nice.

As I said, though, the spin may be the fault of the article writer.

LOL what?

And this, 'But the one million beta users of the site have been "incredibly active, interacting with the site far more intensely and frequently than we thought they would"'

Well of course fans will interact with everything and try to turn over every stone and use every feature, wasn't that the point? Weren't they told that they should interact with the site as much as possible so the developers could see what wasn't working or taking the strain and fix it?

And if the site can't take 1 million beta users, how will it cope with larger numbers? I read somewhere that Facebook has many more users, and still it functions fine every day.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by citac

LOL what?
And if the site can't take 1 million beta users, how will it cope with larger numbers? I read somewhere that Facebook has many more users, and still it functions fine every day.

And facebook had to do lots of work, including development of a database engine.
Performance is a tricky subject, they're not the fist to bump into these kind of problem, neither will they be the last.

[SeaKing]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shopaholic - quote -
How on earth can you possibley make such a statement when you admit you know nothing about the woman?? You're simply crucifying her because she has money & made good. Wow! Unbelievable.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
What you say is untrue. I never said (or admitted as you say) I "know nothing about the women." I said I hadn't read her books, just seen 2 of the movies. I have read a lot about the author herself. It is kind of hard to avoid it.
Lots of authors have made tons of money. Not a problem to me. Lots of people have made tons of money. Not a problem to me.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
miguel1626 - quote -
This is... biased, to say the least. Apparently you don't like HP, and you don't like rich people, so JK Rowling must be the wicked witch of the west.
That's not to say that I agree with her flimsy excuses regarding HP ebooks, though...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"biased" of course! It is my opinion about the author summing up everything I have learned about her. HP was worth 2 movies to me. After that I shut the door. I have done that on many subjects.
Rich people. I discussed that above. However, my point was that Rowling is being elitist and kowtowing to the "high brow literary set."
And we agree on her excuses being flimsy. Just look at it in the light of her being an elitist. My guess is that if the iPad had been out when she made her initial decision about eBooks, she might have accepted the idea. The iPad has been accepted by many ot the "elite" like the New York Times and Book Review so that may have moderated her thoughts.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

.....Now with that disclaimer, I will say if you ever think KT Rowling is anything other than a self serving greedy egomaniac that struck it rich, you are deluding yourself. She is just playing to her self serving high brow friends with this pap about paper books, old book stores, and musty libraries being somehow holy.
Remember she owns a castle or two now. She ain't ordinary people no more if she ever was. No way, no how.

Very classy....

You say you have no problem with authors, and lots of other people, who have made lots of money. It would seem you do with this particular author, for reasons known perhaps only to yourself. So, it would seem JKR has upset you in some other way ?

You also mention your opinion being formed by "everything" you have learned about her, which means you know all about her charity work, and her efforts for medical research, and the fact she made her "pile" through her own efforts and creativity. You then somehow deduced from that, that she is a self-serving greedy egomaniac. Well, she would be, wouldn't she........
Who "struck it rich", by creating something I'm sure gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure, and gave a lot of children a gateway into reading. Sounds a fair deal to me - but then, that's "not a problem to me" either.

( I'm afraid you left me with your flights of fancy about her "self-serving high-brow friends" and the holyness of physical reading materials.)

As for the "elitist" label, and "kowtowing to the high-brow literary set" - that's the same person who wrote a canon of children's work about magic and wizards ? Don't sound too elitist to me. But you obviously know how she is really being elitist - do tell, please.
Mind you, it would seem you have some pretty firm ideas about elitism - the New York Times, Book Review, plainly university medical research units and childrens charities, youth sports activities, and on, and on............
AND, she has the nerve to have a big house, the swine. So few self-made millionaires have those, do they. Anyway, that's not a problem for me.
And quite a few lottery winners, politicians, Nobel Prize winners, etc... are no longer " ordinary" , but that's again not a problem for me, I have to say.

Oh lordy.....

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

Somehow I ended up with all Harry Potter books in my Kindle

And now I can't be bothered to buy the official ebooks, since she didn't care enough about her readers in the first place.

Ditto here. I've lost patience and any interest in purchasing them.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

"Ego, perhaps? " Lemur

"Way to insult your customers... "vxf

Oh, please, do get real.....

I was actually talking about SONY - although that might have not been clear. Promising and making a big deal out of a HP ebook reader and then failing to deliver and never mentioning it, like it never happened - that is insulting to customers.

But I guess it applies to the Pottermore site as well - and, by extension, to Rowling, since she made a big deal out of cutting out the middlemen. But that's a different story.

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by vxf

I was actually talking about SONY - although that might have not been clear. Promising and making a big deal out of a HP ebook reader and then failing to deliver and never mentioning it, like it never happened - that is insulting to customers.

I don't think that was Sony's fault. I think they were a victim in this too. They got promised by the powers that be at Pottermore and got caught in the net when there was no Pottermore.

Afterall, they can't give something that doesn't exist right? They can sell you the reader but what good is a coupon for a free ebook when that ebook doesn't exist?

I have no doubt that they weren't happy about this either. It affected their bottomline too don't forget. They wanted the Christmas market. I wouldn't be surprised to see a breach of contract suit or some type of major compensation demanded by Sony of Pottermore.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Shopaholic

I don't think that was Sony's fault. I think they were a victim in this too. They got promised by the powers that be at Pottermore and got caught in the net when there was no Pottermore.

Afterall, they can't give something that doesn't exist right? They can sell you the reader but what good is a coupon for a free ebook when that ebook doesn't exist?

I have no doubt that they weren't happy about this either. It affected their bottomline too don't forget. They wanted the Christmas market. I wouldn't be surprised to see a breach of contract suit or some type of major compensation demanded by Sony of Pottermore.

Sony isn't entirely innocent in this. They're one of the main forces behind it. Sony isn't just getting an exclusive to bundle the books in readers, but they're the ones handling the store, providing servers, providing financial backing, etc. To say Sony is a victim, is like saying it isn't your fault that you're hung over when you and your friends go drinking at the bar.