The disclosure is directed to receiving a digitized content item that is indicated to be shared with users (e.g., all, some, or one) of a social networking system; selecting, based on one or more characteristics of the digitized content item, a second server computing device at which to further compute or store the digitized content item; and transmitting, to the second computing device, the digitized content item for storage at the second computing device. At least one of the characteristics can be a classification of a user who transmitted the digitized content item via the data communications network. By selecting second server computing devices based on characteristics, data communications network performance can be improved.