In my search for HR blogs I came arcoss this post from Fred Wilson from way back in 10th Feb 2005 on how he used a blog to validate a hiring decision. (Via Moonwatcher Adoption) From reading the post and other parts of Fred’s site it seems to me that this particular hiring decision was a positive one.
There are also not so positive results of people using search engines to conduct due dilligence on hiring decisions.
All in all it seems that the process is increasing, which is good for my some of my ideas.
At the end of the day the trend will only continue if the process actually improves candidate quality, as was recently discussed by Kevin Wheeler from ERE and Steven Kempton from Search Niche.
Michael Specht 
I think it is probably both and a natural progression from where we are today to a new connected world.