Count me as one of the folks that believes Google ought to fix search before it takes on the juggernauts of the consumer web. But that could just be the SEO in me talking.
No question. But part of why a lot of searches & recommendations are happening through social to begin with is because there are still so many algorithmic flaws in organic search. Issues that have plagued search for the better part of 15 years that are just now are starting to be addressed at a high level, I.E. content farms, differentiation between content owners & borrowers/duplicators, etc.
Do 98% of your facebook friends search on subjects that would be found at Stack Exchange or Experts Exchange?
If the answer is no, then any algorithm that takes into account collective searches and 'likes' will ignore them because they wouldn't fit within the cluster of people relevant to that search term.
