Keynote Day2: Social media, what do we need?
It is difficult to analyze the development of Social Media while it is happening, and the speaker, Chris Heuer, did not try to claim he is an expert. He tried to make a point that we are all constantly learning, about and via Social Media.
Describing all companies as Social Media companies (referring to their communication needs with their own channela, and probably also back channels), he stated that this was the way the Drupal community should see their end users and shape their products likewise. To fit the PR needs of companies.
I don't believe in this approach. Of course, the way in which capitalism and the web changes, one could say, that every entity in human society is its own company, and this is at least somehow the reality for many people that get identified as such, and self-identify like it.
But there are not only companies, and I don't see why Drupal should build their architecture in a way to fit this ideology. In social media use there are so many different realities. There are some with hierarchies, some with less hierarchical components, some without. Social realities on the web are fractioned in services and applications, and peole use them very differently.
This is where drupal has an advantage of having a core that is - with work and effort - configurable to meet the needs of different entities. Schools, libraries, self-educating efforts, non-profits, interest groups. Narrowing it down to market and companies doesn't really help the development of an open framework in Drupal to build social media.