MuggleNet

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**MuggleNet**

URL	http://www.mugglenet.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Harry Potter fan site
Registration	Free, Public
Owner	Emerson Spartz
Created by	Emerson Spartz
Launched	Fall 1999^[1]
Current status	Active

MuggleNet is a commercial Harry Potter fansite founded by Emerson Spartz of LaPorte, Indiana. The site's content is composed of news, editorials, synopses of the Harry Potter books and films, an encyclopedia of the books, a chat room, a discussion forum, and media such as screenshots, theatrical trailers and book covers. There is also a fan fiction section, a weekly caption contest, and other occasional contests and polls. As of late, it has launched a podcast, dubbed "MuggleCast," as well as its own line of clothing, toy wands, other merchandise, and a major book.

MuggleNet benefits from friendly relations with J. K. Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter books and the producers of the films. She has praised MuggleNet on her website and awarded it her "Fan Site Award."^[2]. Mugglenet, along with The Leaky Cauldron, also interviewed Rowling immediately after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth novel, was released.

Rowling recounts on her website that she occasionally visits the site and sometimes reads the comments left by visitors, while never commenting herself. Rowling also stated that she visited the site's chat room and was snubbed when she anonymously joined in a conversation about Harry Potter theories.^[3]

Warner Brothers, the producers of the Harry Potter movies, regularly sends MuggleNet pictures taken from the upcoming movies before they are released, and gave MuggleNet a special preview of the new designs of the Harry Potter official website.

MuggleNet produces a podcast entitled "MuggleCast." The first show was launched just before 1am British Summer Time on August 9, 2005. The show features discussions about the books and films and a voicemail section where listeners can send recorded questions to the panel. After two days online, MuggleCast became the number six most downloaded podcast on the United States iTunes list of most popular podcasts and downloads and, on August 14, it reached the number one position. Transcripts of the episodes are available on the MuggleNet website, usually released three or so days after the episode itself is released.

As of autumn 2005, the MuggleNet network generates a six-figure income through advertisements, a portion of which goes into financing Spartz's college education at the University of Notre Dame.^[4] This has resulted in some controversy among Spartz's fans, as Spartz built his community entirely out of Rowling's work and ideas and yet is making a large profit for himself, which he considers as his personal "investment capital."^{[citation needed]}

In November 2006, MuggleNet introduced a line of branded merchandise, including T-shirts, wands, and a collection of unofficial Book 7 predictions. In December 2006, Warner Brothers sent a cease-and-desist order to stop selling the merchendise.

Spartz has admitted that he is "not quite the [Harry Potter] fan he used to be."^[4] Spartz sees his role as "more of an administrator" overseeing a large team of staff members.^[5]

1 Emerson Spartz
2 MuggleCast podcast
3 MuggleNet Fan Fiction
4 April Fool's Jokes
5 MuggleNet interactive
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
- 8.1 MuggleNet

[edit] Emerson Spartz

Emerson Spartz (born February 17, 1987) is founder of MuggleNet. The site was created in 1999 when he was a homeschooled twelve-year-old, which allowed him plenty of time to work on a website. Spartz is currently a sophomore studying business at the University of Notre Dame.

In July 2005, Rowling invited Spartz and Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron to Edinburgh, Scotland for an interview at her home on the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince^[6]. J.K. Rowling denied permission to release the audio recording and merely a transcript of the interview was posted on Mugglenet.

Spartz considers himself as an entrepreneur for founding MuggleNet, and earns a six figure income from the site.^[5]

[edit] MuggleCast podcast

Main article: MuggleCast

[edit] MuggleNet Fan Fiction

MuggleNet Fan Fiction (MNFF) is a branch of MuggleNet devoted to writing and showcasing stories written by fans that take place in The Potterverse. It was created in 2004 and currently has over 2000 authors. A team of moderators reviews the submissions before they are published. MNFF also has a forum where authors can get advice and discuss their fan fiction.

[edit] April Fool's Jokes

[edit] 2005

MuggleNet put up a web page explaining that their site was deleted by lawyers, but refreshing brought back the home page with a few tweaks. The Half Blood Prince countdown was replaced by a Pillar of Storgé countdown, with a badly edited banner with an arrow pointing to Ginny Weasley on the back cover of HBP saying "Storgé", and another arrow pointing to a poorly copied and pasted tower saying "pillar". The original idea for the joke came from the Chamber of Secrets Forums and its technical administrator Ali.

[edit] 2006

On April Fool's Day 2006, Harry Potter fansites MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron shut down their sites temporarily and redirected all visitors to a new website titled The Leaky Mug, a play on the combination of the two sites' names. The new site's first announcement was the marriage of Mugglenet's webmaster Emerson Spartz to Melissa Anelli, the webmaster of The Leaky Cauldron. The two were shipped by fans of their sites for months. They also announced that they were merging their sites as they had merged their lives. The new site looked similar to Mugglenet in the layout. Along with the story of the marriage ceremony, there was a promise of updating the site to include all the content from both sites. Some of the staff from the sites did a short, seven minute Podcast explaining the merge. Mugglenet's MuggleCast and Leaky's Pottercast had done joint shows before, also called The Leaky Mug.

The Leaky Mug featured a Wall of Shame similar to the original Wall of Shame on MuggleNet. The Leaky Mug's version had some of the funnier e-mails addressed to "Memerson" which concerned fans' outrage or happiness with the merge. The page was updated throughout the day.

In the late evening of April 1st, different staff members began to post, complaining about the new members that they now had to work with. Melissa offered an ultimatum to Emerson, allowing him his "wife" or his right-hand man, Andrew Sims, but not both. Emerson had to choose Andrew, and Melissa "filed" for divorce. Right at midnight, the two separate sites were brought back online. They still won't simply say straight forward that the whole idea was a prank. They say that they "forgot to do something" for April Fool's Day because of the hype over the marriage and divorce.

With both sites now running as normal there are no lasting effects of the prank, though the site is still live. If the merge had truly not been a hoax, then the running of MuggleCast and PotterCast would be interrupted, as well as polls, contests, and other functions that both sites had running. But now www.leakymug.com is a real website where The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet have live podcasts. It features a cartoon of the staff members and a quote system where random quotes come out in speech bubbles of the staff members.

[edit] 2007

On April Fool's Day 2007, Mugglenet claimed to be given a preview on the seventh Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. [1] Several "staff reviews" included unlikely comments such as Snape being the son of Aberforth and a goat, Luna Lovegood's true identity being Lily Evans, Dumbledore being an animagus and transforming into a bumblebee and Lord Voldemort dying by a gravity shift which resulted in the moon falling to Earth and crushing his body. The joke was quickly identified by some fans and was flamed by being a bad one, possibly because of the prank in 2006, which fans considered a great one.

On Mugglecast, Andrew, Ben, Laura, Micah and Eric (on April 1, 2007) talked about how they received a manuscript of the seventh book. They discussed many different topics, deaths, themes etc. Speculated deaths included Hermione and Ron. Of Course, all of this was a April Fools' Joke.

[edit] MuggleNet interactive

MuggleNet interactive banner, as seen in the temporary forums.

MuggleNet interactive (the "I" is lowercased), also known to many fans as MNI, is a forums website spin-off of MuggleNet. MuggleNet interactive is known as a roleplaying community, where fans imagine they are living in the wizarding world as wizards or witches.

The site stemmed from a 'Personality Quiz' made around the year 2000, which was later improved and adapted for the full version of the site. It eventually evolved into its 'orange' phase, with sections for Quidditch (including a game), a "Lockhart's Matchmaker" tool and forums. Around 2002, it had a major redesign, becoming blue in colour, with numerous new sections including Diagon Alley, a Duelling game, and Gringotts, where users could access a personal vault containing their galleons collected on the site. There were also numerous 'secrets' hidden on the site, 10 of which were hidden on the main Mugglenet site upon MNI's launch, and an additional 5 made after with galleon rewards. Secrets often consisted of cryptic clues, and were often in various stages. The site became part of Mugglenet in 2002.

The site was shut in 2004 when its former webmaster left after disagreements with the staff. Later, a hacker managed to crack the database and gain access to passwords. In response, the staff shut down the entire website. A temporary forum went up in December 2004.

The site offers Hogwarts classes such as Transfiguration and Defence Against The Dark Arts. Students of each class are awarded galleons from their professors for turning in homework, answering questions, completing quizzes and winning contests. The site also has common rooms for each house, and even a Great Hall for special events, just like in the books.

On April 11, 2005 the second temporary forums of MuggleNet interactive were created. The first temporary forums were taken offline due to the overload of memory on galleons, as well as the amount of students on the forums.

To date, there are more than 42 active forums in MuggleNet interactive.
As of November 25, 2006 there are more than 14,359 registered users and 313,520 articles produced.
There are currently six different positions a person could hold in MNI: Graphic Artist, Groundskeeper, Librarian, Prefect, Professor, and Programmer. In addition, each staff position, with the exception of Groundskeeper, has a corresponding Head Staff member (as mentioned above).