LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B • Hacker News Board

Isn't this a good time to recapitulate the things why LinkedIn is not exactly ideal social network? I forgot most of it, other than how they scour through people's address books.

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#55

Post by 72deluxe » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #21

Congratulations Lynda.com! Story time. When I was in high school, I worked in a little computer lab in my small hometown of Ojai, California, that taught classes in Photoshop, Fireworks, web design and development, Flash, and more. That little technology education company was just called "Lynda," and classes were taught directly by Lynda Weinman, Bruce Heavin, and others. There were maybe ten or twelve employees. I l…

I remember reading her "creative html design" book back about 20 years ago (it was from 1997); that book was a work of art. The techniques may have changed somewhat but the sites in there would likely be acceptable today I suspect (which either shows how little progress we have made, or how well the book was written!)

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#56

Post by edgarvaldes » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #49

Whenever I want to learn something I just search on the Internet or ask experiences people to recommend a book. Or lookup what course literature the well known schools are using. What are the benefit of online courses more then that you get a badge or paper that says you have taken the course?

Some people prefer an structured learning path. You can build it yourself, or you can go to sites like Lynda.com.

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#57

Post by ausjke » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:39 PM UTC

Why not udemy/coursera/udacity? Lynda is great but seems a bit "old-style", but anyway I think this is the right move, a job site companied by training

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#58

Post by caseysoftware » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

At first, I was thinking the same as many others "this is terrible news!" but then I started thinking about the data that LinkedIn has and how they could apply it to Lynda.com

Imagine some scenarios:

- You are looking at a job. Based on the requirements, LinkedIn can recommend different Lynda courses you may take. Now, instead of meeting some of the requirements and not knowing the next step, you can fill those gaps.

- LinkedIn knows what people are endorsed for and who is "similar" to you. Based on that, they can make recommendations for courses that may improve/expand your skills to become more like the other person.. or potentially stand out from that person.

- You're posting a job. Instead of broadcasting it to the world, you can filter it to "promote to people who have skill X listed or who have taken one of these Y courses." Now you're more likely to get a better qualified set of candidates.

Disclosure: Two time Lynda author here.

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#59

Post by kirinan » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #46

eli wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is exactly right. If you look at what's going on at education in general right now, "credentialing" is one of the top challenges for education startups. Particularly for MOOCs but also for bootcamps. How are hiring managers supposed to know which certificates mean something or which classes actually teach people something? LinkedIn's revenue right now is all about services to make recruiting easier.

My personal opinion is that credentialing is going out of style anyway. Employers want to see what you can do, not where you learned. Put another way -- when's the last time you cared if someone was Microsoft Visual C++ .NET certified?

For startups, I agree: certificates mean nothing. In fact, they can be a detriment as the certificates cause an increase in pay that may not be affordable in a startups budget. Plus since startups tend to live on the bleeding edge, there tend to not be certificates for newer technologies like golang. For large enterprises, I believe it gives them the peace of mind that the new hire has at least basic skills in a technology.

Re: LinkedIn to Buy Online Education Site Lynda.com for $1.5B

#60

Post by caseysoftware » Thu, Apr 09, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #29

Someone1234 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was very recently (last year or so) that Lynda started doing more business courses That's provably untrue even according to your own source [0] (when sorted by oldest first). They have videos from 2010 in their business skills section like "Pitching Projects and Products to Executives." And many added in 2011. Heck I myself watched several business courses on Lynda over three years ago... [0] http://www.lynda.co…

Sorry I didn't make it clear. I wrote "more" as in " more business courses" to indicate an uptick in frequency. I wasn't claiming they had zero business courses before 2014. EDIT ADD: Lynda.com also see themselves as strategically expanding into more business, marketing, professional development, and executive management courses. See their 2014 presentation at 47 seconds: https://youtu.be/qlYKbfjru5I?t=47s

They're releasing a lot more of all courses than they did in 2009.