It’s Christmas Eve, and that means Santa Claus is out doing his run. But where is Santa right now? Thanks to the internet, there’s a huge number of ways to get Santa sightings. Below, a summary that covers online video sightings, Santa’s phone number (apparently he can talk while driving), email updates, tracking him via your mobile phone and yes, even getting Twitter updates:

1) Video Clips From NORAD Tracks Santa

They’ve been doing it for over 50 years now, and the NORAD site focuses on showing you a map of Santa’s location along with a video clip of him caught by radar-controlled cameras as he flies past various locations. See past places he’s been to today here. Be sure to read our Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again post for an in-depth look at the NORAD site.

2) Call / Email NORAD

Want to go old school to track Santa? You can email Santa or call Santa for updates, courtesy of NORAD.

3) Google Earth: Track Santa In 3D

If you have the Google Earth mapping software, this page explains the Google Earth Santa Tracker, which plots NORAD’s tracking data into it for you. Again, see Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again for more details about this.

4) Microsoft Virtual Earth Live Search Maps 3D Tracking

Playing catch-up to Google, which hosts the NORAD site, Microsoft is trying to step it up this year with its own 3D Santa finder service. You’ll find it here. It operates using aerial data from Live Search Maps (AKA Microsoft Virtual Earth). You have to have the Virtual Earth 3D plug-in installed. Firefox users and Mac users need not apply — Microsoft doesn’t support either with its tracker. Bah, humbug. For those who don’t meet those requirements, Microsoft says to try this page for an automated look. I did; it didn’t work. The screenshots look cool, but when I tried it, I didn’t see any way to go back to previous locations he’s visited. But I was running it through Windows via my Mac, and the app just ground to a halt. It might have been too processor intensive for a virtual Windows setup.

5) Phone Tracking With Google Maps

If you have Google Maps Mobile on your phone (iPhone, T-Mobile Android G1, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Nokia are all supported), there’s a special Santa search command to bring up his location. Just search for “norad santa” to get an update on where is Santa Claus. Handy for those out doing last minute shopping! But a bit disappointing. The photo above is blurry, but you get the point hopefully — Santa is tracked by only showing the name of a place. No sleigh, not hat, nothing that screams out Santa.

6) Earthscape iPhone Tracking

Got an iPhone? Earthscape has a free app that shows you exactly where Santa is. I’ve downloaded it — it’s super cool.

7) SantaClaus.net Radar Cam

Pretty basic compared to NORAD, this Santa watch tool just superimposes the hard-working guy generally over a part of the world. But if you want a “Santa radar” style experience, you get it with the little radar dishes and radar screens around his image.

8) Santa Twitters His Location

That’s right, Jolly Olde Saint Nick is now on Twitter. Run by NORAD, he’s not only Twittering his location but also replying to people. Awesome!

My favorite Christmas activity is tracking Santa’s route around the world. Once again, NORAD and Google are making it easy. The NORAD Tracks Santa 2008 site is now up, and a countdown for your iGoogle home page can now be downloaded. Google just blogged the news today. Below, what to expect.

NORAD — you know, the missile tracking people — might seem an unlikely group to track Santa. But they’ve been doing it for over 50 years, thanks to a misprinted phone number.

Currently the site has little more than a countdown until Christmas and a Club Penguin-like online game area. On Christmas Eve, that will change dramatically. To better understand, see my Instructions On Tracking Santa With NORAD & Google: The 2007 Edition post from last year.

To summarize from that post, Santa’s route will be illustrated based on the current time, as in this screenshot from last year:

In some places, you see a video icon. Clicking on them will make a window appear where you can play a video, like this:

Below is a video of some of the various locations all blended into one:

All these videos will eventually get posted to the NORAD channel on YouTube, but you’ll get disappointed if you head there now. The channel has been disabled no doubt to prevent people from getting an early look. Similarly, the playlist of videos from last year is still alive but none of the videos will actually play.

Aside from the videos, NORAD will also offer a special file for use with Google Earth, so that he can be tracked in 3D, like this:

The file will be posted here. Right now, there’s only a link to download Google Earth, but the additional file you need will be posted on Christmas Eve. Can’t wait? You might try using last year’s file here.

Out-and-about on Christmas Eve? There’s a new mobile Santa tracking option being offered for anyone with Google Maps For Mobile.

And feeling old fashioned about your phone? You can actually just call and talk to a real live human being for a Santa update. Email is also accepted.

Finally, a last public plea. As I said last year, I’m begging NORAD to offer “parent mode” for the site. Santa only appears near a particular location an hour before midnight. But little kids often go to sleep well before midnight. If you want them in bed on Christmas Eve, showing them that Santa is flying nearby is an excellent way get them to scurry off under the covers.

So please, NORAD, let me say it’s bedtime for my particular location and see Santa flying nearby when it makes sense for me (and other parents).

Happy Holidays!

Postscript: See 8 Santa Trackers For Christmas Eve 2008, From NORAD Santa To Twitter for an update on some new features, such as Santa available on Twitter, a Santa tracker from Microsoft and a cool Santa tracking application for the iPhone.

I’m a serious Santa Claus tracker. When I was a kid, I used to get Santa updates from NORAD (the US missile tracking people) via the radio. As an adult, I’ve long used the NORAD Tracks Santa web site to keep up with St. Nick, Father Christmas, or whatever your local name is for the jolly red suited man. This year, Google officially partnered with NORAD, bringing the NORAD Santa tracking site some of its most substantial changes in years. Some of the changes I like, and some make me think I wish Google had stayed out of it. Here’s how to use the site, what’s different, and what’s cool.

NOTE: See Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again for an update on the site.

Here’s what you currently see at the NORAD site, after making your language choice:

Santa was off the northeast coast of Australia when I made the screenshot above. Notice the little “Next update” timer in the bottom right corner? After five minutes, the view automatically changes. As I watched, he moved from Queensland down to Brisbane.

This is a big advancement over last year, where the map would get updated once per hour, with Santa moving to only 24 locations across the world. As a parent, it’s terrible if Santa’s not flying over your particular state, country, or region when you look with the kids. This change increases the odds that little ones will see he’s nearby.

Click on the map and you can get all interactive with what Santa’s been doing:

See all the little present boxes all over the map? They show you places that Santa’s visited. If you click on one, you get a pop-up window telling you to learn more about that particular area on Google:

The place pop-ups are pretty disappointing. All they do is generate a search query on Google like this: Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Island. The folks behind the site clearly knew various places were going to be featured. How about linking to some human-crafted information, rather than results that aren’t going to be particularly kid-friendly. Which do you want the tots to see? This, as they currently get?

Or this type of thing, which Google Maps does for Mount Fuji:

With a little more work, these pop-ups would have been more than a cheap way to send Google some search traffic.

In some places, you see a video icon. That makes the pop-up show an embedded video like this:

The videos of Santa flying by various locations are the heart of NORAD’s site. This is what it has been known for over the past years. This is what I have depended on, the ability to show my kids that he’s nearby in video so they get a thrill and scamper off to bed.

In the past, these were files hosted by NORAD itself, which you’d play in various desktop media players. Now they’re all Google YouTube hosted. Of course.

I wish when you came into the NORAD main map page that the most recent video was prominently highlighted with an embedded player, rather than being an easy to miss icon in the map. I suspect many people are missing the videos because of the poor placement. Indeed, when I looked at the video for Santa flying over Sydney, only 213 views had happened.

Anyway, it’s a much better experience to watch the videos on YouTube itself, rather than via the map. There are two ways to do this. First, if you watch the video in the map, click on it, and you’ll be taken to a larger version on YouTube.

Alternatively, NORAD has a YouTube channel here. It’s poorly designed, in that the latest videos of Santa flying are NOT listed first:

Seriously — the latest video is from one week ago? And yet I just watched one via on YouTube from an hour ago? Something’s not right.

It’s not really any better if you go to the dedicated video list page here. At first, I thought the most recent videos are listed at the very end. But instead, they move around with no apparent reason, and the titles are all truncated, making it difficult to spot a particular area at-a-glance.

Here are links to his journeys so far that I’ve compiled:

• NORAD Tracks Santa – First Sighting
• NORAD Tracks Santa – Auckland, New Zealand
• NORAD Tracks Santa – Sydney, Australia
• NORAD Tracks Santa – Mt. Fuji, Japan

NOTE: THE CHANNEL HAS SINCE GAINED A MUCH NICER PLAYLIST HERE THAT CHRONOLOGICALLY LISTS ALL THE PLACES SANTA HAS BEEN.

For those who want a quick preview, here’s how the flight over New Zealand looked:

The use of YouTube is great for those on low-bandwidth, because you no longer need to download a large file. But it’s TERRIBLE FOR TIME SHIFTING PARENTS. As I wrote before, I used to be able to guess at the location of videos before they were posted online. That was helpful for a dad who wanted his kids in bed around 9pm, rather than having to wait until the video for our area to appear at 11pm. But now that the videos are hidden on YouTube, I can’t find a way to locate them before a public release. Heck, as I’ve covered, just locating them at all is hard enough.

Google hasn’t just co-opted Santa into its search results and YouTube. Google Earth is playing a role. If you’ve downloaded Google Earth (here), you can then download this special Santa Tracker file. That zooms you to Santa’s current location, like this:

Don’t see him? Make sure you have this enabled in your Places settings on the left-side of the application:

About every minute or so, Google Earth automatically flies you to Santa’s new location. Cool. Very cool — way better than watching him on that “interactive” Google Map on the NORAD site. But not so cool is that all the places he’s already been — along with the videos — aren’t listed as a layer that you can enable.

Actually, there is a non-intuitive way to do this. PARENTS — MAKE YOUR KIDS TURN AWAY NOW!

If you know a place that Santa’s already been, such as “Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Island,” search for that in Google Earth. You get a pop-up like this:

See that “santa_flight.kmz” link with 290 Placemarks shown? That’s Santa’s route for this year. If you click on that or directly download the additional file here, you get a new layer showing his entire route:

That Santa is one busy dude! By the way, I’ve used the same file to make a version you can view on Google Maps here.

In the past, Santa’s flown right past our house near Stonehenge, but this year, it looks like his route’s just taking him to London, then onward to Scotland:

Next to the map I mentioned way above, on the NORAD site itself, you’ll find phone numbers for calling NORAD Santa Tracker for a live update. I called, expected a recording. Nope — it was a real, live person! You can also email the trackers, which I also tried, asking where he was. About an hour later, I got an update.

Overall, despite the effort that’s gone into the NORAD site this year, I can’t help but feel disappointed. Rather than Google improving the site, it feels like they haphazardly slapped Santa tracking into a few Google products without much usability testing. Speaking as a parent, we deserve better than this. In particular:

• I should be able to hit the NORAD site and clearly find where Santa is, has been, and all the related videos without having to navigate through the confusing mess that is the NORAD YouTube channel.
• If I download a Santa tracking file for Google Earth, I shouldn’t have to stumble upon a second one that lists his expected route.
• I should also be able to go into “parent mode” and hit the video for my area at the bedtime I decide for my area — not 11pm.

Also, the animations currently showing seem to be the same ones used for 2006. It would have been nice to see fresh ones made for 2007 for new locations, along with some of the old ones for different locations brought back. England has cities outside London — and in the past, it was a thrill when our little area lucked out to have its own video. The same is true for anyone who lives outside the standard metropolitan areas that always get picked. I certainly can’t wait to see Santa one day fly into Newport Beach!

Let me add that it really pains me to write criticism of the NORAD site, because I dearly love what NORAD has done over the years and the work done by volunteers there. Check out the history of the site here. And despite this year’s flaws, there’s plenty for your kids to love. I’ll probably get Google Earth going on our family computer since it’s far better than watching those icons on Google Maps.

Every year, I enjoy helping my kids track the approach of Santa Claus through the NORAD site, as I’ve written about before. This year, Google’s getting in on the action. You’ll be able to track Santa in Google Earth on Christmas Eve with the help of a special file. You can also download a countdown for your iGoogle home page that Google offers here.

NOTE: See Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again for an update on the site.

Didn’t Google already partner with NORAD on tracking Santa last year? Unofficially, in that it hid gifts within Google Earth for people to locate. This year, NORAD itself is working with Google to do something special within Google Earth.

If you’ve never seen it, what happens in the past at the NORAD site is that you can see Santa flying over various landmarks, with a new one appearing as midnight approaches in each part of the world. Here’s a clip that Mashable spotted showing what’s happened in the past:

It sounds like Google Earth will have those animations built in this year, if you download the extra information needed. Google says the right file will be posted to the NORAD site on Christmas Eve, and I suspect it will also show up on this special Google Earth Santa Tracker page.

A special request from a parent! My kids — like many others — go to sleep way before midnight on Christmas Eve. To help them sleep when they’re all restless, it’s great to show them that Santa’s approaching, so they better get to bed (it works like a charm). But that means you need the Santa videos for your area to show up around 7 or 8pm local time, not midnight!

As a long-time user of the NORAD site, I know how to guess where the right file location is for our area and time-shift appropriately. But make it easier! Give us a “kids’ bedtime” option so that Santa is being spotted around the time when they’re about to go to sleep, rather than midnight.

The iGoogle gadget looks to be very helpful. Above, I’ve shown how it looks in action, showing the current countdown. But on Christmas Eve, it looks like it will change to show Santa’s current location:

Handy!

Back to the NORAD site, it looks like they’ve added Club Penguin-like games that can be played in the run-up to Christmas; they’re nothing too fancy but are likely to entertain young ones.

I love to track Santa courtesy of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command. I did a post on my personal blog last year, Tracking Santa Through The NORAD Web Site, talking about how I moved from listening to Santa’s location on the radio to monitoring him with my kids on the web. Gary Price tipped me to the news that the NORAD Tracks Santa 2006 site is now up.

Can’t wait for him in flight? Nathan over at InsideGoogle highlighted an official Google blog post about how you can find presents he’s left behind in Google Earth and then track him in the software on Christmas Eve. More info on that here. Just make sure all you little searchers are in bed before he arrives!

NOTE: See Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again for an update on the site.