NORAD的圣诞老人追踪是一个很有趣的传统，2004年，Google收购Keyhole后，Google开始使用KeyholeEarthViewer（GoogleEarth的前身）追踪圣诞老人，并命名为"圣诞老人雷达"。起初，用户并不多，只用了一台服务器，结果圣诞夜共有25000人使用了该服务，几乎将服务器烧掉。接下来的两年，Google的圣诞老人追踪有了显著改进，2005年12月，Keyhole正式成为GoogleEarth，用户量大升，Google的圣诞老人雷达团队也有了成长，他们使用了Google图标设计师DennisWang设计的非常漂亮的大图标，并部署了20台服务器。圣诞夜共有250000人使用了该服务。2006年，Google收购3D建模软件SketchUp并应用到GoogleEarth，他们制作了圣诞老人在北极附近的工作室及雪橇。Google还直接从NORAD总部获取追踪数据，并将NORAD的信息显示在GoogleEarth.那一年，超过100万人在GoogleEarth追踪圣诞老人。
2007年，Google成为NORAD的官方合作伙伴，并帮助托管www.noradsanta.org网站。除了在GoogleEarth追踪圣诞老人，他们还在GoogleMap中推出追踪服务，并集成沿途YouTube视频。现在，圣诞老人已经上了GoogleMap，并在圣诞老人经过的全球不同地区部署摄像头，同时推出6种语言的解说。数百万用户参与。
今年，Google的BrunoBowden负责该工作，Google也将该服务进行了升级以支撑更多用户。除了圣诞老人摄像头拍摄的视频，Panoramio也加入进来，在没有视频提供的地方，会有360度全景图提供。使用移动版GoogleMap的用户，可以在专门的移动版网站进行追踪。
本文来源
Tracking Santa: the backstory
12/23/2008 12:14:00 PM
When I look back on four years of tracking Old St. Nick on Christmas Eve, I can't help but smile. The Santa tracker has really come a long way. I always thought NORAD's Santa Tracker was a great holiday tradition, but I felt like it could have been even better if people could visualize exactly where Santa was on Christmas Eve. So in 2004, shortly after Keyhole was acquired by Google, we followed Santa in the "Keyhole Earth Viewer" — Google Earth's original name — and we called it the "Keyhole Santa Radar." The audience was relatively small since Keyhole was still a for-pay service at that point, and we hosted everything on a single machine shared with the Keyhole Community BBS server. We probably should have had three separate servers to host the Santa tracker — that first year, we had only a portion of a single machine. That night, about 25,000 people kept tabs on Santa and, needless to say, wreaked some havoc on our servers!
Over the next two years, our Santa-tracking efforts improved dramatically. By December 2005, Keyhole had become Google Earth and our audience had become much, much larger. Our "Santa Radar" team also grew: we used greatly improved icons from Dennis Hwang, the Google Doodler, and set up 20 machines to serve the tracking information. My colleague Michael Ashbridge took over the software and more than 250,000 people tracked Santa on Google Earth that Christmas Eve. In 2006, Google acquired SketchUp, a 3D modeling software that enabled us to include models of Santa's North Pole workshop and sleigh. We also incorporated a tracking feed directly from NORAD's headquarters, and we were now displaying NORAD's information in Google Earth. That year, more than a million people tracked Santa.
In 2007, Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner and hosted www.noradsanta.org. In addition to tracking Santa in Google Earth, we added a Google Maps tracker and integrated YouTube videos into the journey as well. Now, we had Santa on the map and on "Santa Cam" arriving in several different locations around the world, with commentary in six different languages. The heavy traffic — several millions of users — put Google's infrastructure to the test, but with some heroic work by our system reliability engineers, the Santa Tracker worked continuously.
This year, Googler Bruno Bowden is in charge of the Santa software, and we have further upgraded our server capacity. We're hoping this version of the tracker will be the best yet. In addition to our "Santa Cam" footage, geo-located photos from Panoramio will be viewable in Google Maps for each of Santa's stops that don't include video. We've also included a few new ways to track Santa. With Google Maps for mobile, anyone can keep tabs on him from their mobile phones (just activate GMM and search for "norad santa"). You can also receive updates from "Bitz the Elf" on Twitter by following @noradsanta. And of course, be sure to visit www.noradsanta.org tomorrow morning starting at 6:00 am EST when Santa's journey begins. Enjoy, and see you in 2009!