Pottermore CTO states 'Chamber of Secrets' not coming until this Summer

According to a new article by Pottermore News, the Chief Technical Officer of Pottermore, Julian Thomas, describes some of the technical difficulties the Pottermore team has experienced and mentions that the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, will not be out until "sometime this Summer."

Some of the interesting notes by the article:

Still, “we found when we opened up to the world that the architecture wasn’t enough to accommodate the massive demand,” said Julian Thomas, Pottermore’s chief technical officer.

When the beta version launched, and hundreds of thousands of people wanted in — especially at peak times such as when new content was added — some of the rich features had to be turned off in order to keep the website working, Thomas said.

A peak day for Pottermore — such as during the period when the site first launched — means about 110 million page impressions.

Thomas anticipates more such peaks occurring when new content is added: Such as when content for the second book in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, launches. Thomas did not give a specific date for that but said it would be sometime this summer.

Pottermore.com will also be translated into more languages, including “some Far Eastern languages that will be announced shortly,” he said, and Pottermore will also appear on more mobile devices in all sorts of forms.

One example: The just-announced “Book of Spells,” a partnership between Rowling and Sony in which users can learn about spells in the Harry Potter books via Sony’s PlayStation 3 Move.

Previously, we reported that the Pottermore team was working on the audio recordings for Chamber of Secrets, in particular Chapter Three: The Burrow, and Chapter Seventeen: The Heir of Slytherin.

Are you anxiously awaiting the launching of Book Two? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.