I have always been interested in what seems like the desire of the public for free online services and the costs to the companies trying both to provide interesting services and make a profit. Ads have often been the answer, but now ads have become a target as companies who want to buy ads want them to be targeted. Targeting requires that online services collect information about users to provide the data necessary to target ads to viewers likely to be interested in the ads. The other issues associated with ads aside, ads are not to appear on educational material.
I was recently surprised to learn that Edmodo would be shutting down before the beginning of the new school year. This was a surprise because I knew Edmodo to be a popular service with classroom educators. I was able to find one of my posts from 2014 in which Edmodo was described as the Facebook for education. What happened? I assumed the problem was the inability to find a business model that would cover costs. I explored a bit and found that the lack of a way to convert educator interest into revenue had been a problem others had asked almost from the beginning.
BTW – if you are an Edmodo users you are asked to download your content yet this summer. Use the first link in this post to review the Edmodo directions.