There is a ton of astroturfing going on in this thread. The article looks like an ad... Where are the contrasting opinions?
TechCrunch is known for being "in" with VCs...you know, the ones who fund the companies they write articles for.
Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
61–70 of 80 posts
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#62I used to think these online educational companies wouldn't be very profitable in the long run. Then I discovered Udemy. In the last two months I've bought three courses on Udemy (at about $10-$20 each). The courses aren't your conventional CS classes. I bought a course on Photoshop mastery. Another on Android programming, and another on Adobe Illustrator skills. I've enjoyed the material so far. I have undergrad and…
I like a good deal of what's on Udemy, but it feels like for reasons totally different from the marketing. For me it's more like the online version of those video lecture series you used to buy on VHS or DVD through a "distance learning" mailorder catalog, and not so much like an online classroom. There's some course-like content in it beyond the lectures (quizzes and such), but imo the main value is really just the…
Agreed, in my experience (primarily with Coursera and edX, which are admittedly different from Udemy/Udacity in their focus), the recent wave of online courses or "MOOCs" mostly boils down to video lectures being made readily available online. For my purposes, this is just great! The content is often very high quality, and I have yet to pay for a course since so much is available for free.
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#63I've used quite a few other (pay) MOOC services; subscription based, pay by class, free, etc... Pluralsight, Udemy, Lynda, Coursera, Code School, Stack Skills I've also used some small independent ones as well (Bitfountain is just one example). The thing I would be really curious to see (but unfortunately don't think we will see any time soon) is how the profit numbers stack up on these different pay models. For the…
As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.
"mostly interested in compsci/dev topics"
Assuming you are looking for primarily video content:
- Go deep into some recent-ish tech stack, e.g. React/Flux: Udemy
- Learn foundational stuff, like math: Coursera
- iOS: Bitfountain if you can afford it. Otherwise Udacity or Udemy.
- Android: Udacity
- Frequently need access to 'how do I do this thing that I know should take only 10 mins in app Y?' help: Lynda
- ELI5: Code School or Treehouse
- Anything teachable that's non-tech: Udemy
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#64I've used quite a few other (pay) MOOC services; subscription based, pay by class, free, etc... Pluralsight, Udemy, Lynda, Coursera, Code School, Stack Skills I've also used some small independent ones as well (Bitfountain is just one example). The thing I would be really curious to see (but unfortunately don't think we will see any time soon) is how the profit numbers stack up on these different pay models. For the…
As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.
Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#65I taught myself to code on Udacity, and in a couple weeks I'm going to be launching a social network that I built with one other person. Shit works. There's no reason why everyone shouldn't be on there. edit: Obligatory link to sign up for the private beta: http://fwdeveryone.com/ Also, here is what I wrote about the experience at the time: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/11/2012-my-yea...
Man your blog post brought back so many memories. I went through just about the same learning path, and in 2012 as well. Like you I'd done CS in HS and taken one class in college, but couldn't build anything real if my life depended on it. To me what really made me transition is their WebDev course In all seriousness, though, is their CS253 the greatest course ever or is it the greatest course ever?! Huffman was just…
Udacity is awesome, I got hooked on programming and use python as my go to language due to udacity's programming 101 class. I still have a lot of subscribed courses which are not finished :) and take a look at them from time to time.
Though with Huffman's webdev course I would disagree. I do not know when you took it, but myself, I did it just as it was released, and at that time it was not fully complete. I mean in a sense of extra helping material. Huffman discussed some basics, which were great (especially about how not to make noob mistakes), but for a complete python and webdev noob exercises were really opaque. I remember how flooded forums were of how to setup your app for google app engine or how to complete some exercises to fit it (GAE).
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm learning to code myself too. What courses did you take on Udacity?
CS101 and CS253. I've taken a couple others, but those were the most important ones. C.f. the blog post.
Oh, thanks, I totally missed the link to your blog post.
EDIT: Great post! Thanks for sharing.
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#67I used to think these online educational companies wouldn't be very profitable in the long run. Then I discovered Udemy. In the last two months I've bought three courses on Udemy (at about $10-$20 each). The courses aren't your conventional CS classes. I bought a course on Photoshop mastery. Another on Android programming, and another on Adobe Illustrator skills. I've enjoyed the material so far. I have undergrad and…
I'm really glad for these comments on Udemy, I'll have to give them another look. I must have given them my email address at some point but their constant discount emails are so close to spam I'd written their content off as a scam ages ago. Appreciate the positive comments :)
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
i chatted with these guys and one of my good friends works there and can assure you your impression is mistaken. udacity will be a big company with a product that works and a healthy business model.
You just admitted to being a shill. The question is, are you being compensated for it?
> You just admitted to being a shill. The question is, are you being compensated for it?
Accusing other users personally of shilling or astroturfing is not allowed here. Please don't do it again.
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#69One worrying aspect of this sort of thing is that it obligates them to go after really big revenue potential as an end game.
We don't know much about where online education is going yet, how it works. It may be the case that a MOOC could change the way education works fundamentally and still have revenue that does not justify a valuation like this.
The field is still young and feels like the potential is much bigger than the current state. We don't know what achieving that potential looks like. I hope they aren't taking important options off the table.
Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.
Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.
This actually led to a really good course author having an issue with them over this. (Alan Richardson who hosted a very good technical testing course and a good selenium/webdriver course).
I believe he still has those courses but he intially opted out of their discount program. A course he sold for $200 would have been sold for far less which undermined his own brand but also didn't give him a fair shot at earning from it, especially since he was helpful in responding to any questions I had.
I was lucky and took the course when it was $200, it shortly after went up to $300 due to changes in revenue sharing based around coupon codes. This also meant he stopped offering for free a really helpful free course on technical testing.
(The source of this information is through course announcements made at the time, I can publish them in full here.)
This post from udemy to instructors is interesting reading: https://blog.udemy.com/announcement/
One benefit of the udemy over the pluralsight model is that years later I still have access to the course and can revisit it, without paying an on-going subscription.
Pluralsight overall seems to have better content, at least from a software developer perspective.