At this moment, Technorati claims to be tracking 1,019,611,610 links, an amazing number by anyone’s standards. Collin Brooke referred to this fact with some amazement:

One. Billion. Essays.

That is nothing short of incredible, and it’s only secondarily about technology. Primarily, it’s about writing, all this writing that’s taking place in the world, and challenging all of these static, stolid institutions. They’re rewriting the world around us, and the people in our field “don’t have time” to investigate it? That’s more than a little sad.

Now I’m not sure they’re all essays. But I’d be amazed with even 100 million essays out there on the Internet, being crafted in varying degrees by everyday people, students and teachers included. If you read Collin’s whole post, you’ll see that he’s despairing over the fact that more educators, specifically rhetoric and composition types, haven’t gotten it yet. I know the exposition teachers at my school are just starting to see what this means.

But c’mon…One. Billion. Pieces of Writing. You can’t deny the power of that.