In 1955, a misprinted Sears ad telling children to call Santa on Christmas Eve accidentally gave the number for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The colonel on duty that night, being an amazing person, started the tradition of NORAD Tracks Santa, in which the agency gives updates every Christmas Eve on where Santa is in airspace throughout the night. For the last five years, NORAD has partnered with Google to bring children the tracker, but this year the agency has switched to Microsoft, using the company's Azure cloud computing platform and Bing maps software.Apparently Google and NORAD parted ways amicably on the project, and Google's already set up its own version. For Microsoft, it's a nice shot in the arm; while Bing and especially the Azure platform have done okay for themselves since they were launched, the fact that they can be trusted with something as high-priority as Santa tracking is a nice boost., Capt. Jeff Davis, the director of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command public affairs, explained just how big the program has become:This year, nearly 25 million people around the world are expected to follow Santa’s journey in real-time on the Web, on their mobile devices, by e-mail and by phone. This combination of new and old technologies is essential to helping NORAD keep up with the incredible demand for Santa tracking that grows each year.To put the program into perspective, last year the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center volunteers in Colorado Springs received more than 102,000 calls, 7,721 e-mails and reached nearly 20 million people in more than 220 countries around the world through the www.noradsanta.org website. With the help of a worldwide network of partners, military and civilian volunteers, and thanks to the special friendship between the U.S. and Canada, NORAD will be able to reach even more people this year.Like anything worth its salt these days, the NORAD tracker is multiplatform, and is on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (which is, of course, a Google property).
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Google has taken the chance to develop its own new Santa tracking algorithm. In a blog post, Google Maps and Google Earth VP Brian McClendon wrote:While we’ve been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve. On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes. You’ll be able to follow him on Google Maps and Google Earth, and get his stats starting at 2:00 a.m. PST Christmas Eve at google.com/santatracker.More competition is a good thing, right? I mean, with competing mapping systems, you'd expect that Santa tracking might end up more precise than ever. It's cool to see Google continuing the tradition–albeit not surprising, as Google has its hands in everything, always. And for Microsoft, sponsoring NORAD's efforts (FYI, the tracker is always corporate sponsored, in case any of you were wondering about tax dollars) is a nice PR boost. I mean, how many parents out there are going to think "Whoa, if Bing maps is good enough for NORAD, then it's good enough for me." And I suppose it shouldn't be novel that the Santa tracker is being spread across a fleet of apps, but it is kind of surreal. (For reference, the NORAD tracker first showed up on the web in 1998.)So, for the die-hard trackers, the tracking site went live today, and the agency has continued the tradition of having live trackers available on the phone at 1-877-Hi-NORAD and via email at noradtrackssanta@outlook.com.@derektmead