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December 31, 2009
Santa Tracker was amazingly popular
In the past, we've told you about the popularity of the Santa Tracker on GEB. This year, NORAD has released the actual data from the noradsanta.org site and the numbers are amazing!
To go with the 1200 call center volunteers (who answered 74,000 phone calls and 3,500 emails), the website was visited by over 13 million people from 231 countries. I have to imagine that is by far their largest number ever, for a few reasons:
1 -- It's growing in popularity each year.
2 -- No KML file was available this year, so users had to visit the NoradSanta site.
All in all, it was an overwhelming success. My girls enjoyed it so much that I ended up leaving my netbook on the mantle so they could run in and check his position all evening.
Despite that, I have to think that Christmas 2010 will see even more great features and will be an even better experience!
Did you watch the tracker with your kids this year? What did you think of it?
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Posted by mickmel at December 31, 2009 8:25 AM
Comments
Posted by: Jeff Taylor at December 31, 2009 10:15 AM
I'm using Linux (Ubuntu), which means no Google Earth Plugin (still!), which means no Santa :(
Posted by: Roy at December 31, 2009 6:51 PM
I wish they had a KML file, because then I could use the weather overlay and stuff like that, to better the experience for my younger siblings.
Posted by: Bennett Tomlin at December 31, 2009 7:09 PM
Too much waiting. Santa arrives in "town" in 14 minutes made for some really boring viewing. I think it was much worse than in previous years, and I missed the kml.
Posted by: Dan German at December 31, 2009 8:05 PM
This is one of the best things about the Internet. My youngest begins checking it Christmas Eve morning and goes back to it all day.
Posted by: Scott Salwolke at January 1, 2010 12:46 PM
This was the first year I had even heard of this... my neice who is 10 showed it to me and my 2 young boys who are 5 and 3... they loved it! All the kids tracking Santa xmas eve during the family dinner. It was neat for us old farts when they kids would come running out to report to us Santa's whereabouts. It was cute, and I look forward to doing this again with them next year!
Posted by: Cris at January 2, 2010 2:32 AM
audio from the regular santa update videos was being played on Today FM in Ireland ( a national radio station) on xmas eve.
my 7 year old absolutely loved tracking santa - i have an itouch and we were using the mobile version which was really great. definitely turning into something of a christmas tradition now.
Posted by: justinf at January 2, 2010 5:56 PM
I skipped the Santa tracker this year. The browser-plugin-only format just didn't work for me.
Posted by: Terry at January 4, 2010 8:27 AM
My two oldest children--ages 5 and 3--we're completely captivated by this. At one point I connected my laptop to our large LCD TV and they just loved it. We kept it running the entire night on Christmas Eve as we had dinner and guests over. We can't wait to see what they do next time. Great stuff.
Posted by: Don at January 8, 2010 4:02 PM
This is one of the best things about the Internet. My youngest begins checking it Christmas Eve morning and goes back to it all day.
My two oldest children--ages 5 and 3--we're completely captivated by this. At one point I connected my laptop to our large LCD TV and they just loved it. We kept it running the entire night on Christmas Eve as we had dinner and guests over. We can't wait to see what they do http://www.nightlifeblues.com
Posted by: AMIT at April 5, 2010 2:21 AM
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I watch the tracker with my kids every year, and I thought that this year's version was the best yet. They really got a kick out of the animations that showed him zipping around each city that he arrived at.