Whether you know him as Père Noël, Weihnachtsmann, Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus, there’s a chance you’re anticipating a visit from the jolly old man this December 24. Although he goes by many different names, the magic he brings to the holidays is felt by children and adults celebrating Christmas all over the world.
Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, I have fond memories of racing to the tree Christmas morning to see what Santa left during his stop in my town. Sometimes it took a lot of work to stay on the right side of the “naughty or nice” list, but Santa came through for me every year.
Like most traditions, this one has evolved over time. Now, in addition to racing downstairs to their stockings, children can follow Santa online on his annual trip from the North Pole to their chimney. With NORAD Tracks Santa, children and families can watch Santa as he delivers presents all over the globe (with a little help from the North American Aerospace Defense Command). If you haven't yet followed this tradition in your family, we'd like to invite you to join us this Christmas Eve.
The countdown to track Santa begins today. Visit www.noradsanta.org the entire month of December to play holiday games and learn fun facts about NORAD and Santa. Set a reminder for 2 a.m. EST on December 24 to start tracking Santa in real-time on the website using Google Maps, and in 3D with Google Earth. If your phone is handy on Christmas Eve, you can also search for [santa] on Google Maps for mobile to track his journey on the go.
Wherever you are, we look forward to counting down to the holidays with you at www.noradsanta.org. Be sure to finish all your holiday shopping in time so you can join us for the main event on December 24.
In the meantime, to get into the Santa tracking spirit, follow NORAD Tracks Santa on Google+ and enjoy a few highlights from last year’s journey in this video:
(Cross-posted on the Lat Long blog)
Thursday, 1 December 2011
America’s oldest flour company finds success on the web
From time to time we invite guests to post about items of interest and are pleased to have PJ Hamel, web producer for education and community at King Arthur Flour, join us today. In this post, PJ talks about the unlikely story of a small flour company based in Vermont that’s made it big with the help of the web. -Ed.
This is the story of a small, regional company that sells… flour. Yes, flour. It’s the story of how King Arthur Flour, a centuries-old company, used the web to grow into an international business, devoted to spreading the pure joy of baking throughout the world. Thanks to the web, it’s a story that will stretch far into the future.
Now America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour began in 1790. George Washington had just become the United States’ first President. Despite the recent Revolution, Americans missed their English flour. So Henry Wood, a Boston entrepreneur, began to import flour from England. (Import from England—our arch-enemy? Even then, King Arthur Flour wasn’t afraid to make a bold move.)
Over the next two centuries King Arthur grew, in its own small way. The business gradually moved beyond the Boston area, and sold its flour throughout all of New England (we also moved our HQ to Vermont). In 1990, King Arthur launched The Baker’s Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling flour, tools and baking ingredients. Over the next five years, the catalogue helped introduce King Arthur Flour to markets outside of New England.
By 1996, King Arthur Flour was selling like hotcakes, with flour in supermarkets across the U.S. The World Wide Web was also growing in reach. That’s when we decided to make another bold move: taking our business online. We could see the power of the web—how it would enable us to reach customers and markets a small company like ours would never have had access to in the past.
King Arthur’s first site, in retrospect, was crudely designed and very, very basic. It featured five recipes, information about our flours and a bit of our history.
Since then, however, we’ve ramped up our presence on the web—and become tech savvy. Today, we’ve published more than 2,000 recipes online, all tested by bakers in our test kitchen. Over 75 percent of our catalogue sales now come in through our e-commerce site, which we built in 1999. We now connect directly with our customers through our blog, ratings and reviews and the social web.
Customers new and old find us via Google search, through both organic search results and targeted ads; we manage 2,000+ baking-related keywords on Google AdWords. Email marketing, and the spread of our recipes and content throughout the web, have established us as a true resource to millions of people who love to bake. In fact, during the peak of the holiday baking season, we receive almost 2 million site visits and 10 million pageviews per month.
And we’re always looking for new ways to inspire people to try baking. In the past year alone, we’ve implemented:
King Arthur spent 205 years offline and 16 years (and counting) online. Thanks to the web, this little flour company in Vermont has truly become America’s baking resource. We’re a 221-year-old startup—looking to grow, and loving every minute of it.
This is the story of a small, regional company that sells… flour. Yes, flour. It’s the story of how King Arthur Flour, a centuries-old company, used the web to grow into an international business, devoted to spreading the pure joy of baking throughout the world. Thanks to the web, it’s a story that will stretch far into the future.
Now America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour began in 1790. George Washington had just become the United States’ first President. Despite the recent Revolution, Americans missed their English flour. So Henry Wood, a Boston entrepreneur, began to import flour from England. (Import from England—our arch-enemy? Even then, King Arthur Flour wasn’t afraid to make a bold move.)
Over the next two centuries King Arthur grew, in its own small way. The business gradually moved beyond the Boston area, and sold its flour throughout all of New England (we also moved our HQ to Vermont). In 1990, King Arthur launched The Baker’s Catalogue, a mail-order catalogue selling flour, tools and baking ingredients. Over the next five years, the catalogue helped introduce King Arthur Flour to markets outside of New England.
By 1996, King Arthur Flour was selling like hotcakes, with flour in supermarkets across the U.S. The World Wide Web was also growing in reach. That’s when we decided to make another bold move: taking our business online. We could see the power of the web—how it would enable us to reach customers and markets a small company like ours would never have had access to in the past.
King Arthur’s first site, in retrospect, was crudely designed and very, very basic. It featured five recipes, information about our flours and a bit of our history.
Since then, however, we’ve ramped up our presence on the web—and become tech savvy. Today, we’ve published more than 2,000 recipes online, all tested by bakers in our test kitchen. Over 75 percent of our catalogue sales now come in through our e-commerce site, which we built in 1999. We now connect directly with our customers through our blog, ratings and reviews and the social web.
Customers new and old find us via Google search, through both organic search results and targeted ads; we manage 2,000+ baking-related keywords on Google AdWords. Email marketing, and the spread of our recipes and content throughout the web, have established us as a true resource to millions of people who love to bake. In fact, during the peak of the holiday baking season, we receive almost 2 million site visits and 10 million pageviews per month.
And we’re always looking for new ways to inspire people to try baking. In the past year alone, we’ve implemented:
- a mobile- and tablet-optimized website
- the Google Catalogs app for iPad and Android
- SMS (text message) marketing
- QR codes on our flour bags and our catalogs
- Online baking contests
- Baking Hangouts on Google+ and free, live streamed baking classes
King Arthur spent 205 years offline and 16 years (and counting) online. Thanks to the web, this little flour company in Vermont has truly become America’s baking resource. We’re a 221-year-old startup—looking to grow, and loving every minute of it.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
The next stage in our redesign
Six months ago we started rolling out a new look and feel for Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and a bunch of other products. Our goal was to create a beautifully simple and intuitive user experience across Google.
We’re now ready for the next stage of our redesign—a new Google bar that will enable you to navigate quickly between our services, as well as share the right stuff with the right people easily on Google+.
Instead of the horizontal black bar at the top of the page, you’ll now find links to your services in a new drop-down Google menu nested under the Google logo. We’ll show you a list of links and you can access additional services by hovering over the “More” link at the bottom of the list. Click on what you want, and you’re off.
To find out more about the new Google bar, take a look at this video or read our Help Center article.
Making navigation and sharing super simple for people is a key part of our efforts to transform the overall Google experience, which is why we’re very excited about this redesign. Enjoy!
We’re now ready for the next stage of our redesign—a new Google bar that will enable you to navigate quickly between our services, as well as share the right stuff with the right people easily on Google+.
Instead of the horizontal black bar at the top of the page, you’ll now find links to your services in a new drop-down Google menu nested under the Google logo. We’ll show you a list of links and you can access additional services by hovering over the “More” link at the bottom of the list. Click on what you want, and you’re off.
To find out more about the new Google bar, take a look at this video or read our Help Center article.
Making navigation and sharing super simple for people is a key part of our efforts to transform the overall Google experience, which is why we’re very excited about this redesign. Enjoy!