LinkedIn Sunsets Lynda.com and Fully Transitions to LinkedIn Learning
Six years after acquiring Lynda.com, LinkedIn is redirecting learners to LinkedIn Learning.
Back in 2015, LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com for $1.5 billion. Lynda.com was a pioneer and one of the best-known names in skill-based learning.
The first time I experienced online education was on Lynda.com. I remember downloading their PHP/MySQL courses (but I don’t think I finished even one of them) from torrents while doing my undergrad in India.
Lynda.com was started in 1995 by Lynda Weinman and her husband Bruce Heavin. According to their Wikipedia page, the company started offering online courses in 2002. They raised for the first time in 2013 ($103 million) and then again in 2015 ($186 million).
After their 2015 acquisition, Lynda.com was renamed LinkedIn Learning and integrated into LinkedIn. In early June 2021, LinkedIn shutdown Lynda.com for good and started redirecting learners to linkedin.com/learning/.
LinkedIn Learning is a subscription service that costs $40/month or $25/month if paid annually. It boasts a catalog of 16,000+ courses and learning paths.
Last year, LinkedIn Learning was among the course providers who offered free learning resources due to the pandemic. Class Central has compiled a list of 350+ hours of free LinkedIn Learning courses with free certificates.
Jim
Dhawal, one of LinkedIn Learning’s direct competitors is PluralSight (which I tried a free month, thanks to your alert about its pandemic offer). It’s being taken private, into an education portfolio.
Eilif Trondsen
I see that Linkedin–as sooo many others–claim to offer “personalized learning” but it looks like in Linkedin this is limited to “course recommendations tailored to your interest and function.” In some of the articles written after the 2U acquisition of edx, some references were made about Open edX investing in AI to make online learning more “responsive and personalized to the individual learner.” I am curious to hear how you see this, and what platforms you feel are now delivering the best AI-based personalized learning? Thanks.