• Reuters, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 11 AM

Author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are so popular they've spawned a parallel universe on the Web, where some sites attract millions of fans every day who chat about the books and view Web pages built around them. One of the biggest is Mugglenet.com, created by Emerson Spartz when he was just 12. Today the site is visited up to 40 million times in a month, making it one of the biggest Harry Potter-related Web sites-not to mention a commercial success.

"I spent the entire summer on the road signing thousands of autographs, which is simply unheard of for a geeky kid who created a Web site," Spartz, now a university student. "Harry Potter has got to a point where it is so popular that even fans have fans," the 20-year-old added. Melissa Anelli, purveyor of another Potter site, www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, says Web sites like hers have played an important role between Potter books.

So how will fans maintain Harry Potter culture once the final installment of the series is released on Saturday? Perhaps they will write their own stories based on the lives of other characters in the book? "Pottermania", meanwhile, is coming to a boil in anticipation of the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final book in a series that has sold 325 million copies worldwide.

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