The site is once again in operation (for U.S. users).

This year, Google has also made it possible to call Santa from Gmail. Product marketing manager Trevor Claiborne says, “This year, Santa wants you to reach out to him (after all, reindeer are only so-so conversationalists). If you or your family members have a special request for Santa, you can call him right from Gmail* and leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Santa won’t be able to return messages himself—it’s a busy time of year for him—but he’s promised to keep us up to date on happenings in the North Pole day by day.

“Of course, Santa is never one to fall behind the technological times (word on the street is that Rudolph’s nose was recently upgraded to an energy-efficient LED),” he says. “So while the red suit may never go out of style, this year Santa has come up with an extra special way to spread the holiday cheer. But you’ll have to wait until it’s closer to Christmas to find out what it is.”

I wonder if that has anything to do with Google+. A Santa Hangout perhaps?

On a semi-related note, Google recently extended free calls (for the U.S. and Canada) from Gmail through 2012.

There are generally two camps when discussing this issue. One side makes the argument we need to include all forms of celebration and not let others feel left out, while the other side says they should lighten up. South Park has tackled this issue in one of my favorite episodes; masterfully stating that if we take out everything about this time of year which could potentially offend someone then we’re left with nothing.

Stephen Colbert, another Comedy Central staple has now voiced his opinion on the subject, the only way he knows how – with comedy, guns, and clips from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Enjoy.

Expanding on the video, I made a visit to the Scottsdale Arizona Gun Club website, to see if there’s more to the website and how they plan on getting into the spirit of the season. I wasn’t disappointed.

Here you can see the full ad for the “Holiday Picture With Santa & His Machine Guns!” special. Where you and your family can get a photo with Santa with a plethora of various guns. Personally, I’d want the mounted machine gun in my photo.

Not only can you get a photo taken with Santa, and an assault rifle, but they have a 12 Days of Christmas sale as well. Where you can get that special loved one their very own “Machine Gun Adventure“.

I hope everyone reading this has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hopefully you wake up on the morning of December 25th and receive everything you want, with some egg-nog and fun times with family as well. For those who are looking for that last minute gift idea for me, a grenade launcher attached M16 would really put me in the holiday spirit.

Users can visit sendacallfromsanta.com and choose from a number of options to send unique, often humorous , customized phone calls to anyone in the U.S. Users can also send the messages from Santa via email, Facebook and Twitter.

The Google Blog provides additional information. “If you or your kids have a special request or message for Santa, you can leave him a message at his Google Voice number: 855-34-SANTA. Although he’s too busy to return messages himself, you can always create one on his behalf at the Send a Call From Santa site.”

“And don’t forget—if you want to keep up with Santa as he travels around the globe delivering presents on Christmas Eve, you can track his journey on Google Maps, on Google Earth with the plug-in and on your mobile phone, too.”

Norad has been working with Google for several years by way of Google Maps and Google Earth. Last year, they started using Google Analytics as well. Google is now sharing a video of last year’s Santa tracking:

On the YouTube blog, Jeff Martin writes:

Oooh, it’s almost Christmas! And that means that Santa is about to leave his digs at the North Pole to embark upon his ’09 World Tour, placing presents under the trees of good little girls and boys all over the planet. Where will he be, and when will he make it to your house?

You can find the answer at www.noradsanta.org . You see, every year, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, tracks Santa’s journey from the time he lifts off from his Arctic village to his final stop in Hawaii at the end of a looooooooong night. You can join the ride at Noradsanta.org or try m.noradsanta.org if you prefer to do your Santa tracking on a mobile phone. You’ll also want to subscribe to the NORAD Tracks Santa YouTube channel , which will contain videos of many of his stops around the world, all captured by NORAD’s Santa Cam network.

Check out the related articles below for our coverage of Santa tracking from years past. If you go to NORAD’s site, you can see a live countdown leading up to Santa’s flight.

Related Articles:

> Tracking Santa’s Web Analytics

> Google Teams With NORAD To Track Santa

> Google To Track Santa With NORAD

Microsoft added northpole@live.com last year to its Windows Live Messenger, which encouraged kids to connect directly to Santa. The program asks children what they want for Christmas and can respond to their requests.

The UK based, The Register reported that one of its readers discovered that a chat between Santa and his young nieces about eating pizza made Santa talk about oral sex. After turning down requests to eat pizza the bad Santa replied with, "You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else."

Microsoft admitted the problem and said, "Yesterday we received reports that the automated Santa Claus agent in Windows Live Messenger used inappropriate language. As soon as we were alerted we took steps to mitigate the issue, including removal of language from the agent’s automated script.

We were not completely satisfied with the result of these actions, and have decide to discontinue the automated Santa Claus agent."

Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the company was not aware that the Santa code included foul language and that the company did not believe it to be an employee prank.

At this point in the year, I’m more in the mood for a Santa tracker than American politics.  Still, choosing someone to run our country for four years is an undeniably important process, so it’s good to see Google paying some attention to the issue.

“[S]tay up-to-date on the latest campaign maps, news, videos and blog posts from the election trail,” encouraged Brittany Bohnet on the Google LatLong Blog.  “Add the gadget to your iGoogle homepage to follow the race.  You can choose the candidates you want to follow, or keep tabs on them all.”

Also, “Make sure to check out the maps tab of this gadget to view candidate event trails.  Try searching for your own city or state to see which presidential hopeful will be campaigning near you!”

Expect to see a lot more stuff like this coming from Google – it had an absolute overload of tools related to the Australia’s recent elections, and the company is, of course, based in the U.S.  Also, Bohnet’s title provides a clue; she probably wouldn’t be the Elections Project Manager if one gadget was the end of things.

NORAD’s an old hand at this game; an amusing (and Santa-believer safe) website describes how the tradition dates back to 1955.  Google, by contrast, will be helping out for the first time.  The search giant is handling its duties in a very enthusiastic manner, however, and is using technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, YouTube, and iGoogle.

It has also put a post on the Official Google Blog, and the post happens to have been written by Carrie Farrell.  Farrell is the granddaughter of Colonel Harry Shoup, who first started the Santa-tracking custom at NORAD.  She wrote, “I can remember tracking Santa with my grandfather as a child, and I’m so proud to see my company carry on his vision of doing something this special for kids around the world.”

Farrell then added that there will be a new game or activity on the NORAD site every day until December 24th.

Either bring your kiddies to the computer or get back to baking, then.  Santa may spend less than a thousandth of a second at each house, but you’ll want his stay to be a pleasant one.

Give Santa A Break, Start Your Holiday SEO Early

About of third of online shoppers have already started their holiday shopping, according to ShopLocal. That doesn’t mean you should annoy them with Christmas lights on your website, just know that they’re out there, prowling around your garage before dawn to beat out the amateur yard-salers.

Getting started well in advance of the holiday season has two benefits: serving a significant portion of the online marketplace on their timeline; and giving the search engines time to index and rank your site relevancy just before the madness begins.

Even if Google is getting faster at indexing, it doesn’t hurt to get a head start.

Matt McGee over at SearchEngineLand has put together a nice checklist about how to get ready for holiday search. His advice spans doing your keyword research, things to avoid, remembering the needs of the customers and delivering what they need before they ask for them.

And also, from a practicality standpoint, McGee reminds us:

If you’re upgrading your web site to get ready for the holidays, let your web developer know now. Back in my days as a designer/developer, our phone started ringing off the hook right after Labor Day. Your designer may have the same experience, so if you wait until the last minute, it might be too late!

 Read the rest of Matt’s post for some good tips on how to get ready.

The site looks very professional (if a bit colorless), and, as opposed to whining about the reasons for its existence, offers all sorts of local and national news.  But thanks to an editorial, those reasons (or one side’s account of those reasons, at least) become very clear.

“[W]e were illegally fired for trying to obtain a union contract,” the staff reports.  And it seems that union protection was very necessary: “The newsroom exodus has now swelled to 40 people, including us . . . .”

It’s possible that the owner and co-publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press, Wendy McCaw, had her reasons for making these drastic cuts.  But other reporters, including the Santa Barbara Independent’s Drew Mackie, have rallied around the fired employees (who, as Mackie notes, are their new competitors).

In an opinion piece titled “Thumbs Up for Santa Barbara News Room,” Mackie writes that he and his coworkers are “completely thumbs-up stoked” over the Newsroom’s existence.  He also implies that the News-Press has – shame on it – ignored the whole flap (and yes, this story would be easier to follow if the two papers didn’t have such similar names).

As for the Newsroom, if all goes well, it will, ironically, cease to exist.  The staff writes, “We hope to keep the site going until we are reinstated at the News-Press . . . .”

I like the context in which he presents social search – as a third channel to organic and PPC. Now if iMedia just offered some social bookmark links for the video!

WSJ posits a good question: “Google Tests New Ad Offerings – But Will Advertisers Follow?” In order to accomplish the transfer of ad dollars to other ad formats, Google will need to change existing mindsets about advertising in print, on radio and TV as being too expensive or complicated.

B2B Online’s recent survey gives us BtoB marketers a nice gift: “62.7% of marketers plan to boost budgets in 2007″

Pandia posts it’s Google Santa wish list and Google is listening.

NY Times (need a free sub) Gartner predicts that blogging will peak in 2007: “the number of bloggers will level off in the first half of next year at roughly 100 million worldwide.” That’s hard to imagine with so many generation Y-ers growing up on blogs and the pervasive use of blogs both for business and personal use.

Search for patents on the new Google Patent Search. Looks like Google is leveraging their book search technology for this.

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Lee Odden is President and Founder of
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