We can estimate the relative speed of social networks based on profile to response ratio.

Twitter has a high profile to response ratio. Each environment and person’s profile is compressed for light transit. Myspace has more social geography. Each user has more visual and textual space. Each space is capable of being altered in size, shape, color, and there are embeddable objects.

With Twitter, there are limits on how one can augment another’s space. There is little tolerance for spamming, and much data transparency. The subscribe function limits what one can write on one’s “wall”.

This makes Twitter less iconic and faster. With profiles compressed for easy flow, data becomes more important than image. Some Twitter accounts can actually get away without even including an avatar of themselves if they provide a good data stream.