Santa Claus, the man who keeps up better than anyone with the latest electronic devices and game software, is going Web 2.0. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which tracks his famous one-night worldwide flight as well as such other things as incoming missiles, announced that this year’s trip will be updated on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, the NORAD Tracks Santa web site (www.noradsanta.org), and TroopTube, the online video site for military families.
The NORAD Santa site, available in seven languages and featuring holiday games and activities that change daily, will post up-to-the-minute updates on Google Maps and Google Earth of Santa’s trip, beginning at midnight on Christmas Eve. NORAD also promises that web-site visitors will be able to watch the energetic old guy getting his sleigh ready, running down his preflight check, and whatever else one does before taking a long, long trip in a single night.
‘Failure Is Not an Option’
About 1,200 volunteer Santa trackers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado will begin answering phones and replying to e-mail at 4 a.m. EST on Christmas Eve, through 5 a.m. EST on Christmas. The toll-free number is 1-877-Hi-NORAD, and the e-mail address is [email protected].
The telecommunications company Avaya noted that its real-time voice communications system, which feeds into NORAD’s Contact Center, will be enlisted for the effort. The volume could be significant, as last year’s was more than 74,000 calls from around the world. Given that NORAD deals with events without do-overs, like Santa’s annual trip and nuclear war, Avaya said its system has been tested to ensure reliability — “when failure is not an option.”
Although NORAD may have been busier in those days, the origins of the tradition trace back to the Cold War era. In 1955, a Sears Roebuck ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper encouraged children…