page_title: NORAD Tracks Santa
section_title: Website and other media
hierarchical_section_title: NORAD Tracks Santa / Website and other media
caption_attribution_description: English: NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center 2007
context_page_description: NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed program that starts on December first, but the actual Santa-tracking starts on midnight of December 23. It is a community outreach function of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and has been held annually since 1955. Every year on Christmas Eve, NORAD claims to track the mythical character Santa Claus leaving the North Pole as he is said to journey around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children.
  The website claims that NORAD uses radar and other technologies to track the mythical character Santa Claus. The website simulates the movement of Santa Claus and displays predetermined location information to users.
  The program follows the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in the New York Sun.
context_section_description: The NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the telephone hotline, newspapers, radio, phonograph records and television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their weather updates on Christmas Eve.
  From 1997 to the present, the program has had a highly publicized internet presence. As mobile media and social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program. The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its webpages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and sponsors for a particular year. In September 2008, NORAD started a Twitter account, @NORADSanta, as part of its social media presence.
  Between 2004 and 2009, people who visited the NORAD Tracks Santa site were told they could "track" Santa in Google Earth. They were given a link to download Google Earth, and then a KMZ file to download. From 2009 to 2011, the tracking in Google Earth has been done from the NORAD Santa site, and there is no KMZ file for Google Earth anymore. In 2011, an iOS and Android application was introduced, which features updates and an interactive game similar to Angry Birds.
  From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on December 1 to "track Santa with NORAD". During December, one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available. On Christmas Eve, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different time zone. The "Santa Cam" videos show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over famous landmarks. Each video was accompanied by a voice-over until the end of the 2011 season, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted. In 2012 the voice overs were replaced with music done by the US Air Force Band. The voice overs returned in the 2013 season.
  Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the London "Santa Cam" video, English television personality and celebrity Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and the former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004. In 2002, Aaron Carter provided the voice-over for three videos.
  The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the "Santa Cam" videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine "Santa Cam" videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.
  Since 2012, Analytical Graphics, Inc. has used their Cesium platform to build a 3D map for visualizing Santa's location with more accurate global terrain and satellite imagery than before. NORAD reported that for Christmas 2013, it logged 19.58 million unique visitors to its website on Christmas Eve, and 1,200 volunteers answered 117,371 calls. Through social media, it had 146,307 Twitter followers and 1.45 million "likes" on Facebook. That year, NORAD contracted with Bing Maps to provide 2D map tracking, ending a five-year contract with Google.
  In 2014, NORAD logged almost 20 million visits to its Santa Tracker.
caption: NORAD volunteers answering phone calls in 2007
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