Apparently, users don’t like them.

Well, users don’t like a lot of ads, but it seems that the majority of users won’t even sit through a pre-roll ad to get to the content they originally wanted to view. Now, how is that going to make you any money or disseminate your content? Cory Begman doesn’t believe pre-roll can be a long-term solution:

A study by Burst Media reveals that more than half of all internet users bail out of a clip before the pre-roll stops playing, and a significant percentage leave the site entirely. Interestingly, younger users are more tolerant: 35% of 18-24 year olds close out a clip when they see a pre-roll ad, compared to 49.6% of 25-34 year olds. Of course, pre-rolls aren’t going away anytime soon, but I’d certainly call them a transitional video ad unit.

If you’re going to use pre-roll ads, at least be smart about it. CNN lets you watch a few clips before they start mixing in pre-roll ads. But if the first clip a user wants to view they get hit with a pre-roll add, it will probably be the last clip a user views.

That’s just bad business.

Time, Slate and others have begun using Twitter to post rapid-fire updates from the campaign trail and at primaries and caucuses.

And if they can do it, why can’t you? You can.

Twitter is easy. Signing up takes seconds. All you have to know how to do is type 140 characters or less and hit submit.

It works with many smart phones, and it can help take coverage to a whole new level. Don’t believe me? Check out this NY Times article about how Twitter is changing political campaign coverage.

Here is the thing: what have you got to lose by trying microblogging or beat blogging? Nothing. In fact, you stand to gain a lot.

To Josh Tyrangiel, the managing editor of Time.com, “the business thinking is the same as almost all of my business thinking: Why not?” The more exposure to Time.com’s material, the better, and no one can afford to be choosy about the setting. So Ms. Cox also has a Flickr feed for her photographs from the campaign trail that Mr. Tyrangiel is happy to promote. Ultimately, he said, it is a hopeless fight.

“If you tell people how to consume their content, they will ignore you,” he said, a truism that experience had taught new-media executives. “Let people do what they want to do and try to be in their circle of choice.”

Let that last quote marinate for a bit. That’s how you succeed in the 21st century.

A lot of people disagree with me, but I’ll say it again: you can’t teach culture.

Sure, you can learn culture, but it cannot be taught. Learning culture is an affirmative step, it’s something an interested person does because he or she wants to. Being taught something is a passive step. Someone is teaching you something they have taken the time to immerse themselves in.

Sure you can be taught about culture. You know what it’s all about, but it’s not something you are apart of or really understand. When you learn culture, you immerse yourself in it — you become part of it.

I’m more than happy to provide multimedia and online training for fellow journalists, but there are a few things I must insist on. First, you have to Internet at your home. There is no excuse not to (not having it shows a fundamental lack of curiosity).

Second, you must use some Web applications. No, you don’t have to write a blog and use YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Gmail (the most Web 2.0 e-mail out there), Facebook, Pownce, LinkedIn, etc, etc, etc. But it would be helpful if you have at least tried a few of them.

I get that not everyone will like social networks, but you should at least try a few before you write them on. Give it the old college try. I guarantee you’ll like at least a few of them (I don’t like all of them. MySpace, I’m looking at you).

It would be nice if you read blogs and understood their power. Blogs are rapidly changing our industry. You need to get them.

I want someone who is at least curious about the Web. No amount of me trying to hammer into you Web skills (audio slideshows, HTML, CSS, Flash, setting up a blog, etc) will really sink in if you aren’t curious about the Web.

Because once you act on that curiosity you’ll start to become part of the culture. You’ll want to learn new Web skills not because you want to save your job, but because you want to. You’ll just want to.

That’s what culture is all about. If the only reason you want to learn something is for your job, you’ll never really be apart of the culture or really understand. Can you imagine reporters only learning to write for their jobs?

Of course not. Reporters love to write. That’s why they wanted to be reporters.

But don’t take my word for it because a lot of you think I’m just some arrogant Webbie. Colin Mulvany didn’t really get it until he started blogging:

I will be honest with you, until I started this blog, I barely understood the concept myself. I was shocked by how many people Mastering Multimedia has reached in such a short amount of time. But what really opened my eyes was how people are finding this blog. RSS feeds, tags, Goggle Reader, blog rolls, and links from other social networks. It’s about sharing. It’s about a conversation. It’s about Web 2.0.

I now understand. I have been a producer of web content for years on a creaky CMS that only partially takes advantage of the Web 2.0 tools available on any WordPress blog. I just didn’t see the big picture of why this is important for all of us in the newspaper industry to grasp. If I didn’t get it, then how will my non-blogging co-workers, who are already apprehensive about change, ever understand?

If you haven’t already, my advice is to get an education in Web 2.0. Start a blog. Feed it. Share it. Our very survival as an industry will be predicated on how well we interface with this expanding social networking universe.

Go out there and shock yourself. Sign up today for a blog. There are bunch of easy to use and free options, with WordPress and Blogger being two of the best.

Go for it. Become part of the culture.