Garage & Updates

How does your service work?

A lot of Christmas Spirit and dash of Skype.

How many clients do you have?

Well we are a new company but the bearded man helps out with the client base – His long annual holiday is a bit of a concern and customer loyalty is also a problem, we tend to loose clients as they get older – currently is around the age of 11 or 12.

How many calls do you have in one day?

Well we are limited as we can only call from the good list , so there goes a big chunk of our market!

Which country are living the most talkative children?

They seem to have a lot to talk about on Christmas island.

Is it true that you need Logitech webcam to get a High Quality Video of Santa and multicore processor?

Yes thats true, as it happens we’re using these from a box load that fell off the back of a sleigh we found parked out back.

Does the elf that coded the falling snow animation on your website that cause uncommonly high processor load get any presents this year?

Everyone gets presents around here we are all good!

Do you play an angry Santa as well?

Only when we get a bad Skype connection.

Does Santa have proper pilot training?

He attends top gun every summer, you cant miss him.

We know that fighter pilots, especially those that are expected to land on aircraft carriers which is comparable to difficult landing conditions around most homes, take years to train.

Santa has centuries of piloting experience, landing is not the issue its squeezing down chimneys that can get tricky after a large helping of mince pie.

]]>And now more seriously …

The idea behind santa1to1.com came to me one December afternoon in London whilst queuing to see Santa Claus with my five year old son. After battling the hoards of shoppers and standing over an hour in freezing rain, my son finally got his chance to enter the grotto and speak with him. By the end of the episode, I myself felt like battered luggage that had just fallen off an airport conniver belt, but frankly the look of happiness on my son’s face made it all worth the while. It struck me that all this queuing meant there was an obvious supply and demand problem with Santa, so from that point I started to think of how to tackle this very important crisis.

Christmas although stressful for us adults, is the most magical time for children and Santa Claus is definitely at the heart of this, but there simply isn’t enough of his ho ho ho to go around, its not as if we could simply get away with putting a Santa on ever street corner, or keep dad dress up indefinitely in a red bearded outfit. What’s also worrying is that todays Santa is becoming far too impersonal and at best is just a character holding a Coca Cola bottle. So with all this in mind I set out to changing that with the launch of santa1to1.com . The philosophy behind the site is in essence quite simple, its about making Santa more accessible to children but above all its about giving a child the priceless gift of happiness and special importance which only the magic of Santa can give. It was my objective to bringing Santa back to life as the “Real” all knowing loving character he is meant to portray. So when developing santa1to1.com this concept was kept at the forefront of our business plan which gave confidence that our santa phone calls would indeed offer something truly special to children and at the same time be a unique Christmas gift.

Parents or friends simply logon to santa1to1.com and have the choice of booking either a Live Phone call from Santa or a Live Video call from Santa. Once you’ve reserved your appointment with the great man he will call your child at the selected time. We encourage people to also include details on the child to help Santa personalize the call, as I feel this lends color and realism to the experience, as after all Santa is expected to know these things!

The use of live video calling was the idea from the outset as I wanted to offer as much dimension as possible as young Children no doubt identify better with Santa in a visual form. Skype was a clear choice for use as our video calling platform. In part because of its overwhelming popularity and cross platform software, but also because of its video quality and free download offer. However our regular Santa phone calls are place by PSTN as VOIP calls can be unreliable at times.

To enhance our video call quality, we use Skype 3.6 in conduction with Logitech Pro 9000 Webcams. With this latest Skype Software and the Logitech Carl Zeiss optics we are able to transmit a razor sharp image which allows parents using software such as Pamela for PC or Call recorder for OS X to actually recorded their child’s Santa video call in clarity. This can then be kept as a memorable family moment, transfered to DVD or emailed to other family members.

In the “grotto” we also use Mac’s on a few Santa stations, these operate with Skype (Beta) 2.7 using isight three element lensed cameras. Additional software is required to adjusting the video setting. For this we use iGlasses 2. The Logitech 9000 is supplied with the latest Quickcam software which works great with Skype as we can easily adjust tone and saturation to give a warmer feel to the surrounding and avoid that florescent hue most screens omit onto the subject’s face.

Being somewhat of a perfectionist I felt it important to utilize the best options on the market at our end so we are totally confident in the video quality we provide. I am sure this time next year we will look back and laugh, as video calling technology is moving at a fast pace but naturally we will be keeping up to date with these improvements.

Santa1to1.com currently offers a true to life experience for the children, as all our calls are conducted live and by real Santas. I am fortunate at to employ a great team and my Staff are recruited from teaching backgrounds and some of our Santas have even flown in from lapland to help out.

We have worked hard to get santa1to1.com off the ground, I am not denying that this is foremost a business, but I take enormous pride in knowing that our site will help bring a lot of joy to Children this Christmas and for many years to come.

Halina Mugame with Santa aka Alex Bright, the CEO Santa121