watching videos (embedded from other sites), listening to music, uploading photos, and sharing data. Our test site is running so slow now and it only loads 20 activities at a time.
Also check your SQL, often a lot of cpu cycles are wasted on shoddy database interaction.
1) You want to move static data off your system onto another site like s3.
2) You want to do whatever you can async. ie. if somebody shares data, you don't have to make it available immediately. Just place it in a queue and have a second system go through and deal with it.
People submit data and it's displayed, 20 activities a time and if all of those activities are videos it is taking about 17 seconds to load