How Free Classified Sites Make Money

As a former marketing executive for a popular classified ad website, I was often faced with the question "how do free classified sites make money?" My response to them was always the same, it is summed up in one word; Traffic. Free products or services generate traffic and traffic equals money. The more traffic that a site can attract, the more money advertisers are willing to pay to receive some of the attention that is generated by that site. Craigslist.com for instance generates well over 100 million views per month. Even though Craigslist.com doesn't allow commercial advertisers to promote banner ads on their site, they do charge a fee for certain options in certain categories. For example, in 2011 the site made approximately $96 million in the job recruiter category, $13 million in the real estate category, and $6 million in the therapeutic massage category. This is not even calculating the money that was being made by them in the Erotic categories that they had in previous years. Some estimates were conservatively estimated at around $50 million per year before they shut it down.

Isisclassifieds.com is another great example, this website has established profit centers all through out its lay out. The company charges a small fee for use of its personals section which conveniently reduces the amount of spam received in that category. According to them, this allows the visitor to have a more quality experience. They also have an adult category that generates income for the site and I assume will add millions of dollars to their bottom line in the near future (if not already). Many classified sites like Isisclassifieds.com also charge a fee within the automotive, real estate, and job section. Basically, once the volume of visitors to a classified site is at a certain level, there is plenty of money to be made! Making money for a free classified ad website is accomplish able but definitely not easy. It can take years of marketing and promoting for these sites to generate the kind of traffic that it takes in order to turn a profit. However, once established it is very easy to create several profit centers within a classified ad website due to the multitude of categories and subcategories that exist. they have the option to just pick a popular category within the site, stamp a price on it and watch the money flow in.

Top Open Source Learning Management Systems

Open source Learning Management Systems have become extremely popular in recent years, but what does open source mean? Open Source technology is technology where the source code is "open", that is, the code is available to the public and free to be modified. Improvements can be made by developers and it can be spread or sold to the wider community. So, why should an organization choose an open source Learning Management System as opposed to a homegrown or proprietary Learning Management System?

Firstly, if a company uses a proprietary Learning Management System, they must rely on the provider to maintain and service the Learning Management System, as well as provide support when problems occur.

As the code is widely available in open source Learning Management Systems, many developers read and examine the code, resulting in bugs being identified and fixed much faster than proprietary programs.

Open Source technology is very beneficial to schools, universities and other educational institutions as well as corporations.

Open Source Learning Management Systems are fully flexible and customizable, so they can be designed in line with your school/organization brand image.

There are no license or hardware costs associated with open source technology so it is free to start using it and carries minimal risk.

Open Source Learning Management Systems can also be converted to social learning platforms. You can create an online community through your Learning Management System. For example your learners can chat, blog, connect to social network sites (facebook etc.) and have polls on your open source Learning Management System. This blog post details how you can combine Google + with you Learning Management System.

Top 6 Open Source Learning Management Systems

With the huge number of Learning Management systems available today, making the decision on which platform to choose can be quite overwhelming. Below I have written brief explanations on 6 of the best systems currently available.

Moodle

Moodle is an abbreviation for "Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment" although when it was first developed the M stood for Martin's after its developer, Martin Dougiamas. Moodle has been around for over ten years, with the first version in August 2002.

Features:

Very, very easy for first time users.

Easy generation of PDF documents.

Quick establishment of courses.

All grades for assignments and quizzes etc. can be viewed on one sheet and downloaded as a spreadsheet.

Teachers/Instructors can add multiple files very easily by dragging and dropping.

.LRN

.LRN (dot learn) was originally developed at MIT and is used by almost 500,000 people in educational institutions, corporations and government in over 18 countries.

Features:

Homework drop box.

Scorm Display

Student tracking data can be exported

Different roles are supported for.LRN Classes, such as students, professors and administrative staff

LRN has been internationalized to support multiple languages, dialects and timezones

However, it's main flaw is that it has a very diverse interface with many inconsistencies.

eFront

The basic version of eFront is exactly that, basic, but this can be amplified with modules downloadable from the eFront site. The thought process behind this decision was so that users spend time learning new skills, not learning how to use the platform. There are two efront Learning Management platforms, an educational edition and an enterprise edition. The enterprise edition was aimed at medium sized enterprises with between 100 and 10,000 employees. Extensive research on organizations of this size was conducted before development began.

Features:

Visually attractive interface

Very fast and modern as it is Ajax enabled

Unicode, LDAP and SCORM supporting

Multilingual

Advanced security characteristics

Dokeos

This particular Learning Management System is available in three versions, the original free open source version, a pro version and a specific medical version. It is possible to build visual learning without graphical expertise.

Features:

Convert Office documents into Learning Paths

Content authoring tools

Video conferencing tools

Synchronization with HR Management systems

Print Certificates

Sakai

Sakai was designed by universities, for universities. It was built by MIT, Stanford and Berkeley amongst others so they did not need to use homegrown systems or pay vendors. It aims to be very well suited to group projects and describes itself as a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE).

Features:

Site roster

View site usage statistics

Display external web pages

Create new Sakai sites from templates with pre-loaded tools

Contains tools for portfolio based activities

Because Sakai is mainly coded in Java it can cause problems, especially if using older versions of browsers. It can also be difficult to find programmers with Java skills.

ATutor

ATutor differs slightly from the other systems as it is actually a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). The A stands for accessible, and accessibility is its best feature. Also, user navigational patterns can be tracked so instructors can see students use of the site and students can track their own use.

Features:

Print Compiler to print notes or transcripts of discussions

SCORM and IMS packages can be imported

Easy course creation (although difficult with different types of content)

Easily accessible and adaptable

The file storage feature has a version control feature to keep track of changes and drafts

A negative aspect of this particular platform is that the Java Runtime Environment must be installed on the client side for SCORM tracking. Also, course elements can't be bookmarked.

Conclusion

To conclude, of the six Learning Management Systems listed above, Moodle is by far the most popular, and in our opinion, the best. It has over 62 million users worldwide. On top of the features listed above, here are some other reasons we believe Moodle should be your number one choice for an open source Learning Management System.

Repositories - With Moodle it is very easy to import files from Flickr, Google Docs, Dropbox, Youtube etc. These files can all be saved together in one location for ease of access later.

Discussion boards - The Moodle Community is full of discussion boards in many different languages, therefore users can communicate with people from outside your organization as well as your employees.

Support - There are a plethora of support options for Moodle users. On the Moodle site you can find books and manuals, documents including frequently asked questions, and a forum where you can ask questions. The forums usually have plenty of other users and even computer programmers who are happy to offer help, advice and recommendations, whatever the issue.