Secret Santas Head Online

Two years ago, there was Friendster, a popular Internet site to connect with friends and friends of friends. At the beginning of the year came Catster for cats and Dogster for dogs. Now there's Elfster -- to link elves with elves?

Sort of. Computer programmer Peter Imburg of Oakland created the Web site to organize high-tech Secret Santa gift exchanges. Rounded up by a head elf, a group of friends, relatives, co-workers and other elves sign onto the site, where it randomly draws names and assigns partners. Especially conniving elves can use the site to ask their Secret Santa questions, without revealing their identity, and the site also allows participants to post their wish list and sponsor a charity. Both the naughty and the nice -- the site ranks each user -- can use it for free.

Imburg first created an awkward beta version three years ago for his family's and his wife's family's holiday gift exchanges. It solved some of the common, age-old problems of picking names out of a hat. What if all the participants can't be there for the selection? What if they draw themselves? What if one person -- gasp-- doesn't want to pick another?

"It was rather a fiasco," he said of his relatives' earlier gift swaps.

The increasingly popular Internet phenomenon of online communities such as Friendster, Craigslist and Tribe inspired Imburg to turn the software program into a Web site this year. Imburg's Australian Shepherd-Labrador Retriever mix has a profile on Dogster, and Dogster's creator Ted Rheingold, approached by Imburg, offered him tips on building the site.

"It's a little bit of poking fun," Imburg said about creating another "-ster" site. "But it also evokes the idea of a community of people."

The 33-year-old software programmer with San Ramon's BenefitStreet, an employee benefits software maker and consulting company, also had a personal reason for converting his program into a public site. This way, Imburg, who for three years was responsible for the gift exchanges for both sides of his family, could relinquish his role.

Since its debut in October, Elfster has corralled some 10,000 Santa's helpers from as far as Sri Lanka, Romania and Brazil. It has facilitated 1,740 gift exchanges, one of them involving more than 200 elves. Even Santa Claus has gotten involved; that is, Kris Kringles from the network Santa's Across the Globe, a group of amateur and professional Santa Clauses.

Linton Johnson, BART's spokesman, is the chief elf in the transit agency's external affairs department. Johnson is organizing three gift exchanges, including one with the department's 40 staffers, through the site.

"I've done Secret Santa years and years and years ago, but this is kind of my style," he said. "You can do it on your own time. You sign people up, you don't need a meeting, you don't need to discuss it. ... It does it for you. You don't have to think about anything."

Nicole Barker, a second grade teacher at Oakland's Monarch Academy, said the online gift swap will help her and her husband save money this Christmas. "In the past, I had to buy all my siblings gifts. Now that they're married, it starts to add up," she said. "(This) limited our purchases so we only had two gifts to buy rather than eight to 10 on each side of the family."

Imburg started developing the site in March in his spare time. There are still a few minor kinks; Elfster messages occasionally end up in a person's junk e-mail box, for instance. But the site is generating buzz on blogs, or personal Web logs, with fans touting its ease of use (such as the ability to restrict one person from drawing another) and all-in-fun spirit (someone who doesn't join in is labeled a Scrooge and gets a lump of coal.)

To handle the recent burst of activity, Imburg spent about $300 to rent space at a Fremont data center to host the site, and hopes to make up some of the costs through the site's partnership with Amazon.com. Each time a person buys a gift through the site's wish list, Amazon.com kicks back a small percentage of the profits, a portion of it to Imburg and the rest to a charity of the purchaser's choice.

Imburg said his goal isn't to profit from the site. Eventually, he plans to make the site easier for employees to organize a charity drive for their company. "There's a thrill to have people use software I developed," he said. "Something I did touched people. The more, the better."

Ellen Lee covers technology and telecommunications.