I think the author has missed something. The first result wasn't a typical organic link. It was a Google+ enhanced link i.e. it mentions "this person in 30 Google+ circles".
From my personal perspective when I see a link like that I won't click it. Because I assume that it is going to a Google+ page which like Facebook pages will have general and not context-specific content. That and the fact that showing a person's photo makes it seem like it is a "one man" operation as opposed to a successful company.
I assume that any result different from the basic result I'm used to is some crap google tries to push on me and having a few of those before they never land on relevant or useful content.
Which pretty much sums up my experience with google search over the last few years: less and less relevance and less and less usefulness.
From my personal perspective when I see a link like that I won't click it. Because I assume that it is going to a Google+ page which like Facebook pages will have general and not context-specific content. That and the fact that showing a person's photo makes it seem like it is a "one man" operation as opposed to a successful company.