Hundreds Flock to Download Wirehog

Wirehog, a new breed of file-sharing program spawned by the creator of thefacebook.com, made its official debut on the Harvard and Stanford campuses yesterday with hundreds of students signing up to use the service.

The program, which is integrated with the popular social networking website, facilitates the transfer of files between digital “friends” who can share anything from documents and photos to music and movies. More than 1,200 students on both coasts had downloaded Wirehog by 7:45 p.m., co-creator Mark E. Zuckerberg ’06-’07 said last night.

Preliminary data indicated the release had gone smoothly, Zuckerberg said. But at Harvard, some students reported trouble selecting files to share, while others had difficulty adjusting to the Wirehog interface, which is substantially more complex than thefacebook.com.

With the release of Wirehog—for both Mac and PC—Zuckerberg is betting on the appeal of a uniquely personal approach to file-sharing.

Unlike popular programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus, which allow users to search and download among a worldwide network of computers, Wirehog only allows the exchange of files between two acquaintances in a fashion more akin to the file-transfer feature on many instant messaging programs.

That approach could appeal to students looking for their friends’ favorite music or photo albums, but it also requires longer download times than more traditional file-sharing programs.

Zuckerberg said he did not have information on the level of traffic between users operating Wirehog yesterday, but he said roughly two-thirds of users had made at least one file available to share with other computers.

Zuckerberg, who created Wirehog along with Andrew K. McCollum ’06-’07 and Adam D’Angelo, a junior at CalTech, said the program’s future release schedule was still tentative.

“Once we get a good taste of how it’s scaling—the numbers of users we can support per server, for example—then we’ll open it up to a broader release,” Zuckerberg said.

As students began downloading the program yesterday, speculation arose as to the identity of the “secret weapon” cited as a collaborator on the Wirehog website, www.wirehog.com.

Some surmised the anonymous contributor was Napster co-founder Shawn Parker, but Zuckerberg said those rumors were false.

“It’s somewhat a joke,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s not like an important guy.”

—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.