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 learned a lot from them over two summers about the intersection of development and design, about teaching and working with people, and so much more. It launched my interest in user experience design and development. Not to mention the epic LAN parties we used to have in that computer lab with all the top-of-the-line graphics workstations... good times.
I have a lot to be thankful for, and I'm so genuinely happy to see their success. They were the nicest people to work with, and I'm sure that remained true as they grew. Congrats to these guys, and I hope they find a good place with LinkedIn.
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!)
Righton. I was at MetaTools/MetaCreations just down the road in Carpinteria. Lynda ran the Bryce Camp and Painter training courses for us. Some of her very first ones.
The current Lynda.com HQ is now in Carpinteria - right across the highway from the old Meta offices off Bailard Ave.
Fellow Ojai native as well! Where was this computer lab you worked at? I knew Lynda was based up in the Santa Barbara area, but didn't know it had it's roots in Ojai, very cool to see!
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 in: desired from both sides of the equation (Job Seekers and Recruiters/Talent Sourcers).
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 work to allow other spammers to spam you. That's all they are, a giant spam platform at this point.
So too bad about Lynda. It will be greatly missed (by me).
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.
Lynda will miss us all. I deleted my LinkedIn account because it's not useful for computer science fields (I think). I didn't want spam anymore. I won't continue for long with them.
Every time an announcement like this is made, there is premature mourning. I understand skepticism, but what's the point in saying goodbye before anything has even changed?
This. The free Lynda membership I get through my University has been incredibly helpful in understanding things I'm studying as well as diving into new topics. I really, really don't want to see it changed/ruined by LinkedIn :(
Linkedin is sort of a social network for recruiters and brokers who are looking for new talent.
Sure they spam potential clients with job offers. Sure they set up groups and make posts on it and they flood your email.
Your Linkedin profile is supposed to be your resume or CV, people endorse you for skills that worked with you.
Buying out Lynda is going to give Linkedin an option to sell classes for certification to be added to your Linkedin profile. It will make you more valuable to the people looking for new employees and clients. It is not a perfect system, but at least they'll know you took a class on the subject they are looking for.
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 recently (last year or so) that Lynda started doing more business courses[2] (how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan, etc) Since those business courses are probably their thinnest and weakest offerings, I can only speculate that it was a partly a "proof-of-concept" to show a prospective acquirer (such as LinkedIn) the breadth of topics the content platform could deliver.
In that case, LinkedIn is really buying Lynda's content delivery platform (the technology) as opposed to seeing value in the existing portfolio of courses (the copyrights).
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm somewhat saddened that a controversial company like LinkedIn (UI dark patterns, creepy privacy invasions) was the one who bought them. I would have preferred a company like github (synergy with code sharing) or Apple (enhance iTunesU) to do it. Unfortunately, github doesn't have the cash/stock and Apple is busy with more grandiose plans.
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.
> 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...
One of the many steps we will see that will have a net effect of disintermediating traditional secondary education. With companies like LinkedIn filling an Uber type role.
It used to be that the secondary degree was the middle man between employee and employer (for many professions).
Certifications from companies like Microsoft and Cisco changed this in some realms.
MOOCs and companies like Lynda expanded to different sectors.
Now layers like LinkedIn can essentially be the Uber between employers and the myriad of certifications and degrees that will be available to employees. An Uber layer for connection, credibility, aggregation, certification, etc.
I don't believe traditional secondary education gets completely disintermediated. But I believe the landscape becomes much more heterogeneous, which is a good thing.
No idea on valuations on this but seems kinda crazy to pay so much when all of the various free MOOC offerings seem to be getting better and better. Realize there's a difference motivation-wise when you actually have to pay and that "learn how to do x" vs "learn about the subject x is under" has value but don't know if $1.5bn is that difference.
I see great value for Linkedin users if there's some "official" certification for skills learned through Lynda services that leads to them being more marketable. That's pretty exciting.
The Lynda.com courses aren't like MOOCs. They're not classes on theory, but rather condensed practical things, to get you up and running quickly. They're really aimed at working people catching up on new tech/learning the bases of new skills.
I do recommend the service if you want to figure out how to get started quickly with things like final cut or whatnot. It's realllly high quality stuff condensed into 2h or so
I'm 100% sure LinkedIn probably offered to buy Coursera at a similar price:
1. A lot of Coursera's engineers are LinkedIn veterans.
2. Coursera is arguably a much better quality and more highly regarded education platform than Lynda.
3. Coursera certifications were something LinkedIn and Coursera were actively working on.
I would imagine that Coursera refused because their vision of education is much broader than what they might have been able to achieve within LinkedIn. What do you guys think?
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.
This is a very bad day for me. I was working on the integration of skills and education at fillskills.com. Serves me well since I gave up on it because of various reasons. Mostly because I was afraid of what people would say when I launched.
This is great for education in general though. Imagine finding the skills to you need to build your career and then the exact education to build it with.
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.
Same. I was just looking at the new courses last night on Lynda...all business-oriented. I left the site with relief that I had canceled my membership. With the acquisition news this morning I see now why new developer courses have been lacking.
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.
Maybe, but Pluralsight looks more like it's aiming for an IPO to me. They've made quite a few acquisitions but then not really integrated them much into the core product - mostly adding big lumps of subscribers and revenue to their numbers which looks better for an IPO than an acquisition.
They could very well partner. Let's say you are a recruiter looking for someone who knows machine learning and is based (or wiling to move to) a certain place. A quick search on linkedin and you are shown, amongst others, all the candidates who completed the Machine Learning course on Coursera and match your location criteria. And the other way works as well: if you completed an online course and tell linkedin about it, it can indicate you positions in your area were your new skills could be useful.
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.
Honestly, I am one of the masses who thinks LinkedIn is Monster 2.0 but you can't say it's going to be crap just because a crap company bought it. Just wait and see, keep being an active supporter until they change something you don't like and stop. Them losing users is the best way to affect change.
Also, throwing Reddit into that category is unfair, true reddit changed but it's grown into something useful if you know where to go (avoid /r/funny aka /r/thingshighschoolersthinkarefunny)
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
Coursera seems to offer more of an academic lesson plan (learn linear algebra, algorithms, history of modern China) which doesn't seem very applicable to a specific tech job. These are more for people who want to learn for the joy of learning.
(Same thing would be said about edX although I think it's owned by the schools (could be wrong))
I would say they didn't go after Udacity most likely because of the small, and also younger, user base where as Lynda.com seems to appeal to more of the people who want to transition out of a job into another job.
This is all pure speculation though as I've only done a few courses on udacity and coursera and actually never done any on Lynda.com but have known people who have.
Linda.com is one of those rare companies that has tempered assaults on their business model from every flank by sticking to what they do best and have somehow managed to come out shining.
Seriously, these guys were founded in 1995, they've been through all of the web turmoil and still managed to improve their technology offerings and stay relevant. Not sure what this acquisition means, but I hope things don't change much.
This could be interesting if you of it think from the ideal, that college traditional education is becoming an outdated format and project based learning is leading the way to gain real world experience.
Now job seekers are creating a blank linked-in profile, taking and finishing some online course to show there skills, while automatically generating their resumes and profiles for employers to see.
[+] [-] calinet6|11 years ago|reply
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 learned a lot from them over two summers about the intersection of development and design, about teaching and working with people, and so much more. It launched my interest in user experience design and development. Not to mention the epic LAN parties we used to have in that computer lab with all the top-of-the-line graphics workstations... good times.
I have a lot to be thankful for, and I'm so genuinely happy to see their success. They were the nicest people to work with, and I'm sure that remained true as they grew. Congrats to these guys, and I hope they find a good place with LinkedIn.
[+] [-] 72deluxe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p1esk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonah|11 years ago|reply
The current Lynda.com HQ is now in Carpinteria - right across the highway from the old Meta offices off Bailard Ave.
[+] [-] dougbarrett|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sels|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kirinan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|11 years ago|reply
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 work to allow other spammers to spam you. That's all they are, a giant spam platform at this point.
So too bad about Lynda. It will be greatly missed (by me).
[+] [-] Raphmedia|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jasallen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richerlariviere|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dabernathy89|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ladybro|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blub|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orionblastar|11 years ago|reply
Sure they spam potential clients with job offers. Sure they set up groups and make posts on it and they flood your email.
Your Linkedin profile is supposed to be your resume or CV, people endorse you for skills that worked with you.
Buying out Lynda is going to give Linkedin an option to sell classes for certification to be added to your Linkedin profile. It will make you more valuable to the people looking for new employees and clients. It is not a perfect system, but at least they'll know you took a class on the subject they are looking for.
[+] [-] jasode|11 years ago|reply
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 recently (last year or so) that Lynda started doing more business courses[2] (how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan, etc) Since those business courses are probably their thinnest and weakest offerings, I can only speculate that it was a partly a "proof-of-concept" to show a prospective acquirer (such as LinkedIn) the breadth of topics the content platform could deliver.
In that case, LinkedIn is really buying Lynda's content delivery platform (the technology) as opposed to seeing value in the existing portfolio of courses (the copyrights).
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm somewhat saddened that a controversial company like LinkedIn (UI dark patterns, creepy privacy invasions) was the one who bought them. I would have preferred a company like github (synergy with code sharing) or Apple (enhance iTunesU) to do it. Unfortunately, github doesn't have the cash/stock and Apple is busy with more grandiose plans.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn#Acquisitions
[2]http://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-training-tutorials/484-...
[+] [-] brudgers|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Someone1234|11 years ago|reply
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.com/Business-Skills-training-tutorials/484-...
[+] [-] jbooth|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freshhawk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gz5|11 years ago|reply
It used to be that the secondary degree was the middle man between employee and employer (for many professions).
Certifications from companies like Microsoft and Cisco changed this in some realms.
MOOCs and companies like Lynda expanded to different sectors.
Now layers like LinkedIn can essentially be the Uber between employers and the myriad of certifications and degrees that will be available to employees. An Uber layer for connection, credibility, aggregation, certification, etc.
I don't believe traditional secondary education gets completely disintermediated. But I believe the landscape becomes much more heterogeneous, which is a good thing.
[+] [-] whatok|11 years ago|reply
I see great value for Linkedin users if there's some "official" certification for skills learned through Lynda services that leads to them being more marketable. That's pretty exciting.
[+] [-] rtpg|11 years ago|reply
I do recommend the service if you want to figure out how to get started quickly with things like final cut or whatnot. It's realllly high quality stuff condensed into 2h or so
[+] [-] dd367|11 years ago|reply
I would imagine that Coursera refused because their vision of education is much broader than what they might have been able to achieve within LinkedIn. What do you guys think?
[+] [-] GCA10|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] fillskills|11 years ago|reply
This is great for education in general though. Imagine finding the skills to you need to build your career and then the exact education to build it with.
[+] [-] neovive|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] aoakenfo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caseysoftware|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] junto|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petercooper|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] n-exploit|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calinet6|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tosh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S4M|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] DanAndersen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Htsthbjig|11 years ago|reply
I loved the site. Now I will have to add it to the long list of companies that got bought and lost their essence, like cdbaby, reddit, or digg.
I started using whassapp in order to scape facebook. Now those bubble monsters are acquiring everything they can while money is free.
[+] [-] UUMMUU|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ausjke|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UUMMUU|11 years ago|reply
Coursera seems to offer more of an academic lesson plan (learn linear algebra, algorithms, history of modern China) which doesn't seem very applicable to a specific tech job. These are more for people who want to learn for the joy of learning. (Same thing would be said about edX although I think it's owned by the schools (could be wrong))
I would say they didn't go after Udacity most likely because of the small, and also younger, user base where as Lynda.com seems to appeal to more of the people who want to transition out of a job into another job.
This is all pure speculation though as I've only done a few courses on udacity and coursera and actually never done any on Lynda.com but have known people who have.
[+] [-] wwweston|11 years ago|reply
Can you be more specific about ways in which their offerings fail to measure up to current competitors or the potential of current technology?
[+] [-] bstar77|11 years ago|reply
Seriously, these guys were founded in 1995, they've been through all of the web turmoil and still managed to improve their technology offerings and stay relevant. Not sure what this acquisition means, but I hope things don't change much.
[+] [-] btzll|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onhopwood|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alejoriveralara|11 years ago|reply