Ad-free Web 2.0 services for education, do we need that?

Wetpaint is an interesting platform to start your own online community website. It provides a set of great features, such as: wiki, video, photo, discussion board, membership, etc. coming in a package, where we can easily customize for our own purposes.

Webpaint is not only good for entertainment purposes, but also for education purposes. Teachers can easily manage their courses on their Webpaint websites. Using Webpaint is like using a simple web 2.0 Moodle or Blackboard platform.

Yet, one of the current major concerns of using Webpaint for education is their policy on Google advertisements. Their services are still “free”, but as users, you have to bear with uncontrolled Google ads on your free websites. Although I personally have not experienced any ”inappropriate” ads on my websites, I often come across some “irrelevant” ads on others and mine. In addition, having commercial ads on the education websites can sometimes be annoying.

Before August 2009, they offered completely free advertisement services, but apparently they also need to make money at some point to survive. Off course, if you don’t want the Google ads, you can have them removed from your websites for US$20/month. US$20/month for removing ads on a website can be insignificant for some people, but at the same time it can be a burden for those who pay less for their monthly Internet service.