Social search has been one of those “it” topics recently. Chris Sherman from Search Engine Watch takes a look at the pros and cons of such a system. One conclusion:
“Some people, no matter how well intentioned, will simply do a poor job of labeling content. Others will deliberately mislabel content to attempt to fool search engines. In both cases, it’s difficult for software to recognize this spuriously labeled content. In social search, it’s difficult to filter the noise from the signal.”
In my opinion it takes a real dedicated effort to consistently mess with a system like this. As wikipedia has proven, it is more likely that a small team that wants to see the product succeed will outweigh those who try to diminish its relevance.