The Year in Review: Leaky and Fan Coverage

This has been Leaky’s biggest year of change yet; with our first full year of podcasts, a vast redesign and reconceptualizing of the site and a huge number of new sections, we are unrecognizable from 2005. We’ve also monitored more fan activity than ever before, including conventions and wizard rock. Though the Harry Potter fandom is a wide and constantly changing body that is impossible to fully capture in this setting, here’s a short overview of the Leaky and fan related news we covered here this year. Again, thanks to Sue for pulling the links to all this and to everyone who helped out!
In January, we unviled our countdown widget and uploaded the first part of our three-part available in full.)

We unveiled the new Leaky on Feb 1, and won Yahoo!’s People’s Choice award on Feb. 2. On Feb 4, we learned that the convention Phoenix Rising would bring Harry Potter fans to New Orleans. We then set our live LeakyMug for July 29 at the convention “Lumos”.

In March, the Harry Potter Lexicon introduced Knight Bus Tours, while Leaky introduced its quote conjurer and Scribby, our essay section. Later Leaky/PotterCast presented the first ever fan DVD commentary.

On April 1, nothing happened on the site at all.

Later in the month, Leaky was nominated for a Webby, and released our first call-in show as well as the Harry Potter IQ test and mobile Web site. John Noe did his promised dance dance.

In May, the wizard rockers started making more news, announcing a free concert at Lumos. Leaky then became the first fan site ever to win a Webby Award. We announced a NYC LeakyMug to celebrate Jo’s visit, and Jo smacked John down in style on her Web site for using “Horcri” as the plural of horcruxes.

HPEF announced Prophecy 2007 in June, a convention to take place next August in Toronto, Canada. Leaky makes its new gallery and new set of T-shirts available. The wizard rockers come to New York City as they start their tours. HP Editor Cheryl Klein comes to PotterCast, shortly followed by director M. Night Shyamalan. The Leaky Lounge hosts a casino night, while the Scholastic podcast tour information is announced pics follow, as well as coverage from the Chicago Tribune.

Harry Potter convention Lumos is called a Potter “playground for adults” while Leaky and MuggleNet announce that the live podcast at the convention will feature a trivia faceoff. Phoenix Rising announces its Keynote Speakers, and the live Lumos LeakyMug reveals Leaky’s winning of the trivia smackdown. PotterCast reaches 50 in August, and is voted Best Entertainment at the Podcast Awards later on. Matt Lewis returns to the show to talk about movie five, and the Harry Potter Lexicon reveals its customizable timelines.

In September, Enlightening 2007,a Harry Potter camp, announced it would occur in Philadelphia this summer. PotterCast announced that it would present a live podcast in New Orleans at Phoenix Rising. Meanwhile, the new Accio Quote! debuted, while Leaky’s galleries underwent yet another makeover. Electronic Arts came to PotterCast to discuss the fifth video game. We also released our new fancy video gallery, completely designed from scratch.

In November we released our all-in-one HP search engine, Ask Peeves. The wizard rockers performed a Yule Ball in Boston (later featured on PotterCast. The fan response to the recent Deathly Hallows announcement included a new section on LeakyLounge and two special PotterCasts, one of which featured Evanna Lynch. To cap off the year, HPEF announced its 2008 and 2009 conferences.

It’s been a busy, wonderful year…stay tuned for our final year in review, our look at the year in books.