Power in Amateur Numbers

My recent read of The Cathedral and the Bazaar has caused me to reflect on an interesting lesson about today's intermingling culture: it doesn't take a paid professional organization to create something truly great. The mass of worldwide amateurs have proven themselves capable of producing quality products and services thanks to the existence of flexible platforms to share their talents online. Some of these platforms include deviantART for artists, GitHub for software developers, and Blogger for literary publishers. One interesting example of amateurs producing a quality product can be found in the Virtual Choir project--of which I've been privileged to be a part of. The basic idea was to allow anyone in the world to submit a video of themselves singing the harmony part of an agreed-upon song. The videos were then aggregated and published together in a stunning video. Not only did the project break an incredible amount of barriers (5,905-person choir representing 101 countries), it fits right in with the musical quality of a professional choir.