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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

#31

Post by kirinan »

jkestner wrote: post #9
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…

Does MCSE still pull weight? Are there newer certifications that matter now? What fields do you think will benefit from this certification? In design (one of Lynda's pillars), half of hireability is portfolio. I suppose in production roles, you'd want to know you're hiring technically proficient people, but that too you can mostly tell from the work. Perhaps this works as well, or better, from the angle of "People wh…

I think in some realms MCSE does pull some weight, such as large financial institutions and non-tech companies. There are newer certificates such as those from Coursera and Udacity that are starting to pull more and more weight from the industry, mainly tech though.

The main fields that benefit from this are business and technology. Human resources and recruiters tend not to be technical: they have no idea if you actually know Java or not. They simply know you have it on your resume. This gives them at least some peace of mind that you know at least some Java. Conversely, Business people can be evaluated on whether they know how to do basic things like rate of return or efficiency metrics.

This does help in that realm, but it helps in giving some people confidence as well. Some people have imposters syndrome so a certificate saying they know it alleviates that feeling.

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

#32

Post by jbooth »

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…

Techies might be 5% of linkedin's user base, but they're a much larger % of the recruiter fee base. Those recruiters are the people who pay linkedin.

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

#35

Post by danvoell »

nly wrote: post #26
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…

How can their technology possibly be worth $1.5B?

Linkedin is paying for the content and ongoing business model. Lynda had $100M in revenue in 2014. Sure LinkedIn could have replicated the content but they are taking an existing business that works, building on it, and assuming that by marketing it via linkedin.com they can expand Lynda to a larger audience.

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

#37

Post by Someone1234 »

aurora72 wrote: post #17

Wonder how they will be able to compete with free online courses, there are plenty of them and they're just as quality. I also wonder how Linked-in itself can compete with other social networks.

> Wonder how they will be able to compete with free online courses, there are plenty of them and they're just as quality.

The quality is the same, but most free online courses are their own worst enemy.

Sites like Lynda and Pluralsight, once you pay the price of admission, give you what I call the "Netflix experience." Essentially click any video you want, bored? No biggy find another. There's absolutely zero barrier to entry and no guilt associated with it.

Some free places do it well, like Berkley [0], and more or less anyone dumping onto YT. Because in those cases there is no registration, no "guilt" if you don't attend "class" and complete a "test" you just turn up, watch a few videos and leave.

However a lot of free training is trying to reproduce the actual college experience to their detriment. Coursera[1] is a perfect example. You have to register for a specific class, then turn up to watch it every week, do tests at specific times, and they guilt the shit out of you over email if you get bored after a few lectures (and have "limited" spots in a class).

Honestly paying Lynda $25/month was fine because of how frictionless the entire experience became after that. Ditto with Netflix/HBO GO (and why I cancelled Hulu+).

[0] http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ [1] https://www.coursera.org/

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

#38

Post by martin-adams »

danvoell wrote: post #35
nly wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can their technology possibly be worth $1.5B?

Linkedin is paying for the content and ongoing business model. Lynda had $100M in revenue in 2014. Sure LinkedIn could have replicated the content but they are taking an existing business that works, building on it, and assuming that by marketing it via linkedin.com they can expand Lynda to a larger audience.

Plus, they have one less key competitor in that space if they buy Lynda than to build it themselves

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

#39

Post by aurora72 »

jonknee wrote: post #27
aurora72 wrote: post #17

Wonder how they will be able to compete with free online courses, there are plenty of them and they're just as quality. I also wonder how Linked-in itself can compete with other social networks.

Considering Lynda has been competing with them for two decades, I'm sure they'll do OK.

Didn't know they were for 20 years, I've just taken a look at Lynda'a wikipedia entry and oh yes they've been for 20 years, that's interesting. But revenue at $100M/year and acquisiton at $1,5B is more interesting. Still wonder how they'll compete with hundreds of good quality and free online courses, free badges, Mozilla certifications, etc. Good luck to them.

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

#40

Post by ThomPete »

DanAndersen wrote: post #19
ThomPete wrote: post #10

Congrats to Lynda.com a service I can't recommend enough if you want to get started with programming. It's been around forever and the quality is amazing. I learned to program using it and I always recommend people to use it if they can afford it. Going to be interesting to see where they will take this.

I'm also a fan of Lynda.com's tutorials. One thing to mention to anyone out there is to see if your workplace offers access to Lynda to employees. The university I work at does, and it's nice to have that as a resource.

Agree. I used to run a design agency, we offered that to our employees it was a great way for people to keep up with various trends and actually much more effective than to send them at courses (which we also offered).
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