Using search to discover friend recommendations just doesn't feel like a big deal.
Nate Elliot, in Jennifer Van Grove article for CNET:
"For them to call this big news feels like a bad joke ... They're taking an unacceptably bad part of the service and making it usable."
We tend to get our social cues from what our friends do in real life. What we learn becomes part of our awareness and influences our buying decisions. We typically know the restaurants where we live and look for recommendations when traveling. And then don't we want to get recommendations from locals? For electronics, do we look to our friends or professional review sites like engaget, gdgt, headfi?