Yep. I'm commenting on and liking all sorts of things I'd never have seen before the mini-feed in the top-right corner was introduced.

It did for a lot of people, indeed... Differences in click-through are quite measurable for us (a Facebook app provider).

The Ticker, specifically, proved to be a huge surprise, with click-rates higher than the regular click-rate of a Facebook Ad!

For me it didn't change my behavior, but that's not the point. I think the fact that Facebook may emphasize the search functionality more does mean something. As you know there's this thing called affordance.