Pottermore's Insider blog updated and announced that the beta site will be down for a few days beginning November 2, 2011, and that the BETA period will be extended further. Pottermore stated weeks ago that they tentatively scheduled to open to the general public by late October, though that has been postponed. At the moment we do not have a tentative date for the opening but will announce it as soon we can.

After looking closely at all the information that we've gathered, we have decided to further extend the Beta period so we can improve Pottermore before giving more people access. This means the site will not be opening to new users in the immediate future, but please know that we will open registration as soon as we can.

As part of our work to make Pottermore even better, we'll be taking the site down for a few days on Wednesday 2 November. We're going to use this time to make a few technical changes behind-the-scenes.

We've set up a separate page on the Insider so we can give you the latest Beta information and answer some of the more common Beta questions. We'll be updating it as the Beta continues and posting on our Twitter account, too.

So Pottermore will not be opening to new users just yet. For all of you who are waiting to enter Pottermore, we want to thank you for being so patient - we’re working very hard to make some exciting improvements, and we're really looking forward to welcoming you to the site when it’s ready.

A few FAQs about Pottermore, including about the Sorting, chapter issues, and registration problems, have been updated, and can be read here.