"the value of so-called "social search" is limited to nonexistent because most people in your circle won't review anything."
I completely agree. The other huge problem with social search is I don't have 100% overlap with all of my friends. If I like Alice's taste in music, and Bob's taste in food, searching among Alice's taste in food and Bob's taste in music is a complete loss for me. Instead, I want "Netflix search": "people similar to you that rated Foo 4 stars also rated Bar 4 stars.
Wait until someone links up all our friends' and coworkers' credit card purchases, netflix views, google searches, downloads, travel history, etc- or even just a few pieces of that- then you can start to come up with a recommendation engine (AKA social search) that doesn't require people to actively create content for.
I completely agree. The other huge problem with social search is I don't have 100% overlap with all of my friends. If I like Alice's taste in music, and Bob's taste in food, searching among Alice's taste in food and Bob's taste in music is a complete loss for me. Instead, I want "Netflix search": "people similar to you that rated Foo 4 stars also rated Bar 4 stars.