'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the 'net, children were booting up their computers and cellphones, to see if Santa had stopped by yet.
Their laptops were out, their typing emphatic as Christmas crackers, surfing to Google Earth, Twitter and the NORAD Santa Tracker.
It's beginning to look a lot like a Santa 2.0 Christmas.
For years, millions of children have written letters to Santa Claus and watched the skies anxiously on Christmas Eve for a glimpse of Rudolph's shining red nose while leaving out cookies and milk for the jolly old elf.
Now, thanks to technology, kids can interact with the man in red in the run-up to the holidays in ways that can add a little tingle to Kris Kringle and are bringing Santa Claus to life in new ways for the digital generation.
Again this year, search engine kingpin Google will be teaming up with the North American Aerospace Defense Command to provide children the world over with a map and SantaCam videos of his flight path through the company's Google Earth service.
For 24 hours, beginning today at 6 a.m. (ET), NORAD will be offering a Santa “tracking map” complete with live videos of Santa and his reindeer at various locations around the world, ranging from the North Pole and Mount Everest to the Taj Mahal and the International Space Station.
Kids can follow along in seven languages through the website or on a smart phone by using Google Maps.
NORAD has been “tracking” Santa ever since 1955, when a misprint in a Colorado newspaper resulted in hundreds of calls to the organization's Air Operations Centre. Colonel Harry Shoup was on duty that night, and instead of hanging up on the children phoning in, he ordered his operators to find the location of Santa Claus on the radar and report the information to everyone who called.
According to Santa's itinerary, this year Donner and Blitzen are due to touch down near Reindeer Lake, Man. – the only Canadian stop listed on NORAD's Santa schedule – just after midnight (ET) on Dec. 25.
Last year, the Santa tracker website received more than 40-million hits, making it the most visited non-commercial website in the world over a 24-hour period.
Santa interaction, however, is evolving with the times. This year, the elves at the North Pole – which seems to be located in the vicinity of Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters – have started a feed on the popular micro-blogging site Twitter so that children can get regular updates on the movements of Santa's sleigh.
“We'll be offering updates about how things are going at the North Pole,” said Bitz the Twittering Elf, better known as Google spokesman Aaron Stein, the man who will be updating the NoradSanta Twitter feed on behalf of Mr. Claus.
“When the track actually goes live, we'll be updating everyone according to NORAD's radar,” he said. “We thought Twitter would be a great way to let people know about the Santa Tracker in a way that hadn't been done before.”
Many children have already received their Santa correspondence this year, courtesy of the 11,000 postal elves at Canada Post who volunteer to answer letters addressed to the North Pole. Last year, Canada Post responded to 1.2 million letters and 45,000 e-mails on behalf of jolly old St. Nick.
Children interested in a bit more back and forth with the head honcho at the North Pole can check out one of dozens of interactive Santa websites that offer “live” chats and personalized videos.
There's SantaBot, where children can put questions to Mr. Claus and receive immediate, albeit formulaic, responses. As well, Bell Canada's Sympatico service and Microsoft Canada have teamed up to create Portable North Pole, a video service where parents can upload basic information about their child, who then receives a personalized message from Santa.
Since its launch just over a month ago, Portable North Pole has sent out nearly one million videos.
