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

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

#71

Post by neovive »

A wonder if it's a coincidence that the latest video published today is: Up and Running with LinkedIn.

Seriously, as a long time Lynda.com subscriber, I've noticed a steady increase in the volume of courses in the "business" category. As a designer/developer, I find some of the business videos quite interesting and a nice expansion beyond their core design-centric courses.

I definitely see the synergies, but am a bit concerned that a company the size of LI is going to slowly move away from the designer/developer focused videos to certification-oriented courses; more of a direct competitor to Udacity's Nanodegrees and Coursera's Specialization Certificates. However, there are much better options these days for targeted developer video courses (e.g. Egghead, Tuts+, Laracasts, etc.). This was a great exit for Lynda.com--they have built up an amazing brand over many years.

LI brings such a massive scale with great channels to monetize courses beyond subscriptions. Enticing a relatively small percentage of the LI user base to upgrade to a new paid subscription tier justifies the cost; not even considering the additional opportunities this creates for both employers and job seekers.

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

#73

Post by Someone1234 »

bdcravens wrote: post #62
blub wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's always Safari. They also have videos and stuff now, although I prefer the cheaper, book-only subscription.

Safari is good, but wouldn't something like Pluralsight be closer to Lynda?

I don't really think either Safari or Pluralsight is a good replacement for Lynda. They're both focused on very IT/technical topics (which I enjoy, but that isn't ONLY what I enjoy).

Lynda actually wasn't as good as Pluralsight purely on technical topics, but what they did very well was "everything else." Their niche (if they even had one) was that they did other topics.

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

#74

Post by tannerj »

Raphmedia wrote: post #42
Someone1234 wrote: post #18

This, to me, is terrible news. I am a big fan of Lynda.com. They've always had a great library (both for tech' stuff but are also one of few sites that offer non-tech video training (business courses, photography, etc) and their prices were always very reasonable. LinkedIn can only make the site worse as far as I am concerned, and I already avoid LinkedIn due to the fact that they've essentially become spammers who w…

My first reaction was also "oh no!". That being said, it could be interesting if Lynda course completions could be linked to a linkedin profile or something similar. Gives some power to self-learners.

I've used lynda.com for a while and about 6 months ago they started asking me to share that I had completed a course in my linkedin profile. There is no exam or anything just something that said I'd "completed" (watched) the course. They call them certificates of completion. I've never shared them because I don't think sitting through 4hrs of video means anything other than I have an interest to learn about that subject. I love Lynda.com and always recommend it to people. I always say their tutorials are really good at getting you to a point where you understand enough to read documentation. Atleast when it comes to programming languages. I too am a little worried by this news.

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

#75

Post by brudgers »

To me, this is another sign of most Linkedin profiles gradually becoming just another resume on the web and LinkedIn as the next web generation's soft-core version of Monster.com.

LinkedIn isn't a social network because having a LinkedIn profile is mostly about required maintenance. The main activity is updating [and rolling back spurious skill endorsements]. Integrating online education is just another recruiter platform service. Professional colleagues don't care if I took a PhotoShop class online.

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

#77

Post by aikah »

rasz_pl wrote: post #15

Daphne Koller must be happy today, this is a huge validation for Coursera business model.

> Daphne Koller must be happy today, this is a huge validation for Coursera business model.

makes no sense. It would be like saying Facebook success validates Twitter business model, just because they are both social networks. Lynda doesn't issue certificates if you complete their courses. And AFAIK they don't work directly with universities or colleges.

Coursera content is academic, while Lynda.com is practical and focus on specific software and/or technology. Sure they have a few "theory courses", but that's not their core business.

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

#78

Post by brudgers »

jasode wrote: post #16

As an outsider looking in, LinkedIn's purchase of Lynda.com looks like an odd duck in comparison to their previous acquisitions[1]. As far as I can tell, the Lynda.com brand name isn't that well known outside of tech circles. (Virtually all of their courses are Adobe, Microsoft Office, and web development, etc) I'm guessing those computer courses are relevant to less than 5% of LinkedIn's user base. It was very recen…

Linkedin will do well pushing computer courses because "getting into tech" looks attractive to the 90% of people stuck in lousy jobs. They're looking to cash in on a webified version of the "bootcamp" movement. They have a great audience - people make Linkedin profiles because they are job hunting.

And anyone who takes an HTML class makes the list of profiles returned from a recruiter's search longer. And for the spam recruiters LinkedIn tends to serve, a longer list is more valuable.

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

#79

Post by strictnein »

eli wrote: post #14
kirinan wrote: post #5

This is a pretty interesting acquisition. Linkedin is trying to position themselves as a full service job market. If you want a particular job, go to Linkedin and even if you are missing a few skills you can pick it up on their site and get "Linkedin Certified". This provides Linkedin with a series of "Linkedin Certified Professionals" that recruiters need to pay to get access to. It's an interesting position to be i…

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.

Some certs mean nothing, but some of the MOOCs do apparently earn you some credence.

I know the NSA, for instance, regards completing Coursera's Data Science specialization [0] as at least noteworthy enough to mention it in their Data Science job listings.

[0] https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1

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

#80

Post by easytiger »

kirinan wrote: post #5

This is a pretty interesting acquisition. Linkedin is trying to position themselves as a full service job market. If you want a particular job, go to Linkedin and even if you are missing a few skills you can pick it up on their site and get "Linkedin Certified". This provides Linkedin with a series of "Linkedin Certified Professionals" that recruiters need to pay to get access to. It's an interesting position to be i…

Great, back to the 90s and java & oracle certification style shit being demanded by employers
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