We put them back up here. The YouTube videos are still down.

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Now that I got your attention, allow me to disappoint. There is no scandal or disagreement. We at Chat the Planet continue to think YouTube is an incredible force in media that allows unusual stories like those in Hometown Baghdad to find an audience. However, the truth is that we are in the process of finding television distribution for Hometown Baghdad and we want to make sure the process goes smoothly. Television distribution for Hometown Baghdad would dramatically increase the amount of people that get to meet Ausama, Adel and Saif. Their stories and lives would be able to bring unseen realities of life in Baghdad to an even greater audience than we’ve already reached. It’s an incredible opportunity for us, for the videos and for our three friends.

To those of you who have blogged about HTB and embedded or linked to our videos from YouTube, I’m sorry. Same goes for people who have recently forwarded YouTube links to friends.

Meanwhile, the videos will be made available on our website on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

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Due to the outrageous amount of offensive spam that has overwhelmed our forums for the past few months, I have disabled the forum. I’m sorry that it has come to this. You’d think that there is enough of a demand for pornography and discount drugs in the world that the sellers of those things wouldn’t have to make our attempts at dialog so endlessly annoying.

One of the reasons that I haven’t had the time to fight the spam is that Chat the Planet is hard at work on a few awesome things. One is a follow up to Hometown Baghdad about another important place in the world that deserves global attention. Another is a web platform that will allow for an unprecedented amount of global connections and dialog. I can’t say much more about it now but it is quite exciting. To be kept up to date on that, sign up for the email list.

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Back in January, HTB producer Fady Hadid sent me a translated letter/poem that Nezar Hussein, one of HTB’s talented cameramen, wrote about living as an artist in Baghdad. Moved, I forwarded it to all of my contacts, including an editor at Good Magazine. The letter got passed around the office there and they printed it in their 2007 media issue. It is powerful and worth reading.

Good, for those of you who don’t know, was started by Ben Goldhirsh with the idea that young people want to do well in the world by doing good for the world. It’s an intriguing concept and a great magazine - well written, artfully designed, etc. They also donate all of their subscription revenue to a great group of charities.

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Scott Simmons did a lengthy interview with me about the production and post production process on Hometown Baghdad for Studio Daily. The piece also reveals more about the history of the project and the thinking behind it than most other articles. From the intro: “I spoke with Mike DiBenedetto, the online distribution manager, about the project, how it came to be and about the technical issues and challenges faced during the production, and especially the post-production, when creating a series that was shot so far away.” Read on.

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