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Amazon to launch a Santa app in time for the 2011 holiday season [UPDATED]

Amazon Santa Claus app

Updated December 1, 2011 at 5:37am EST:  As expected, Amazon announced the launch of its Santa App for the Kindle Fire and iPad.  The press release was issued yesterday on November 30.  A day before the announcement, Amazon added a bunch of related domains to its portfolio including: amazonsantabooks.com, amazonsantacatalog.com, amazonsantafire.com,  amazonsantagames.com,  amazonsantagifts.com, amazonsantaholiday.com, amazonsantakids.com, amazonsantakindle.com, amazonsantamovies.com, amazonsantamusic.com, amazonsantatablet.com, amazonsantatoys.com, amazonsantavideo.com, amazonsantawishlist.com and amazonsboot.com.

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Amazon is hinting at the launch of a Santa Claus app with several new domain registrations this week that include names like AmazonSantapp.com, AmazonSantaforFire.com and AmazonSantaforiPad.com.

On November 21, Amazon’s legal department registered a bunch of domains through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  The names indicate the Amazon Santa app could be available on a number of different tablet devices, not just the Kindle Fire. 

The new domain registrations include:

amazon-santa-app.com
amazonsantaapp.com
amazonsantaclausapp.com
amazonsantaclausmobileapp.com
amazonsantaforfire.com
amazonsantaforipad.com
amazonsantaforkindlefire.com
amazonsantafortablets.com
amazonsantamobileapp.com
amazonsantapp.com

At the time of this story going online this morning at 5am EST, Amazon has not made any official announcements on its Press Releases site nor do any of the domain names above resolve to a web page. 

Santa Claus apps and websites have been popular during the holiday season, particularly Santa-tracking apps. 

NORAD’s Santa Tracker is one of the most highly trafficked websites each year.  According to a rough estimate by Compete, NORADSanta.org (which opens in December) had over 4 million visitors in December 2010.