In a bid to become a one-stop shop for all things career — with a fast lane — professional networking site LinkedIn just announced its acquisition of Lynda.com, a veteran online education company that offers skills-based video courses for everything from management to programming to Photoshop.
"When I look at Lynda.com’s platform, I see a best-in-class collection of high-quality, premium content," explains LinkedIn's CEO Jeff Weiner in a blog post, "Always Be Learning." In bringing it to LinkedIn's 350 million users, Weiner says he hopes to help "make it possible for anybody to easily and effectively acquire a skill needed to get their first job, get a promotion, land a business deal or advance their career."
Want to learn 3D animation for that dream job at Pixar? Lynda.com, which began in 1995, well before the rest of its competition, can teach you. No word yet on when you can start beefing up your video and coding skills — the deal, valued at a hefty $1.5 billion, isn't expected to close until Q2, according to TechCrunch. (Some perspective: In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion.) Also, it comes just two years after the company acquired the sleek newsreader app, Pulse, for $90 million.
In a sea of networking and social media sites, it looks like a well-timed hustle for LinkedIn. After all, the site has become a go-to repository for the unemployed and headhunters, not to mention home to an abandoned inbox of messages that often begin with, "Hi, sorry — I always forget to check my LinkedIn."
But, with the acquisition of Lynda.com, that could change. (TechCrunch)
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