For those of you who miraculously didn’t know yet: Warner Bros. Entertainment and Universal Orlando Resort are building a Harry Potter theme park in Florida that is due to open in 2009/2010. Giant nerd that I am I’ll so be there!

They are doing a great job in building a park for the fans, using crowdsourcing to find out what they want the attractions, the merchandise and even the food in Harry Potter’s World of Wizardry to be like. Warner and Universal have obviously realized that Harry Potter fans are avid users of the internet, using sites like MuggleNet.com and HarryPotter.com to connect and exchange anything and everything about Harry, his friends and enemies.They are now trying to engage these fans to shape the theme park.

Apparently, bloggers are invited to submit ideas on how they think butterbeer and Honeydukes chocolate frogs should taste like. I think this is a fantastic way of engaging people. Harry Potter fans are kind of like Trekkies: they have very strong opinions about the world of Harry Potter, and they are very passionate about everything in his world. They are the ones who will be going to the theme park, who will be traveling to Florida from all over the world to experience Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, Platform 9 3/4, … They will give passionate reviews – either in favor or against the park. And their voices will be heard, they will have influence over how many people are going to go there. It is in Universal and Warner’s best interest to engage them in shaping the park. And I am curious to see what other Social Media ways of promoting the park they will be employing.

I personally think that butterbeer should taste like Werther’s Original Butter Candies, served not too cold, and have the consistency of Guinness beer. And the chocolate frogs should be made from 60% dark Lindt chocolate. In my head, that’s what these two taste like. What do they taste like in your head?