Pottermore Names Charlie Redmayne as CEO
J.K. Rowling
Posted by: Edward
October 10, 2011, 10:37 AM
The Bookseller is reporting that Charlie Redmayne, HarperCollins' Executive Vice-President and Chief Digital Officer, is set to become Pottermore's CEO on November 7th. The report quotes Neil Blair, Ms. Rowling's longtime agent and Chairman of Pottermore, as saying Redmayne is "a formidable talent in both the digital and publishing spheres," and has an "'entrepreneurial spirit', [which] made him the ideal appointment for the role."
Pottermore had been under the helm of interim CEO Rod [not Ron as has been elsewhere reported] Henwood, but, as the Bookseller notes, Redmayne's appointment marks "the next phase of the project," according to Mr. Blair. In regards to Pottermore, Redmayne calls it "a hugely exciting project which will take one of the greatest brands in literature into a digital future."
58 Points
I’m still curious about what, exactly, Pottermore’s business model is. How reliant is it going to be on the e-book shop when it opens? Is it going to ever be laden with ads? Will it ever require users to pay for some aspects of the Pottermore experience? Buy galleons with real money?
1466 Points
Indeed, I hope h speaks the truth, but until I see some changes on Pottermore, I won’t hold my breath. I do hope he fixes wizard duelling soon though, I was really looking forward to trying it out but by the time I got onto Pottermore it had already been taken down.
293 Points
Interesting news, indeed. We’ll see how this all plays out.
Curious re: the comment area was supposed to be for beta comments. IMO, they sure didn’t make that clear! With they way it’s presented on the screen, it’s hard NOT to take that as an area for free commenting/chatting. Especially with it tying in to “recent activity”, not to mention being able to look at friends vs. everyone. Instead of just “Comments”, it needs to be labeled something like, “Please post your suggestions for improving the site”.
293 Points
@Ellorgast – Good question re: business model. I really hope that PM itself stays free like JKR promised. And I’m not fond of the thought of buying galleons with real money (though I know many of the facebook games do that sort of thing). It seems like that could skew the playing field a bit. Not that we’re really competing for much on there so maybe it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
I’m hoping the store will have more than just the ebooks, which would help with them earning money. I’d love to see HP covers for the ereaders! While I like my plain black leather case for my nook, I would totally buy a Ravenclaw cover for it! I don’t think I’d mind if you could earn galleons with store purchases (i.e. buy an ebook and earn 10 galleons or something like that).
590 Points
Well, I’ll echo some of the comments, there’s still a lot of work to be done. I haven’t been on Pottermore in days. Not much to do if you don’t like trying to brew massively complicated & difficult potions & losing lots of house points in the process.
Wow a new CEO. I wonder how far he’ll take Pottermore (: I’m enjoying it so far.. I can’t wait to take a hand at dueling.