Social networking site #linkedin has bought online learning company Lynda.com for $1.5bn.
Commenting on the acquisition, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said, “LinkedIn’s fundamental value proposition is connecting people to opportunity. We’ve made significant progress in this area; nearly 350 million members can use LinkedIn to find a job, build a business, and be more successful in their careers. However, matching talent and opportunity is a simplified take on the equation. Without access to education and the ability to acquire skills, many of these opportunities will remain far out of reach for most people.
“With today’s announcement that LinkedIn intends to acquire lynda.com, LinkedIn has taken a material step forward toward connecting these dots. You can learn more here about the details of today’s announcement.”
In a short video posted on the LinkedIn blog Weiner said LinkedIn’s acquisition was another step along the way to building what it calls its Economic Graph – helping connect people and skills with jobs. In other words making LinkedIn the go to global recruitment platform.
LinkedIn already enables users to blog, providing them with a channel to share what they know. Buying Lynda.com will see LinkedIn help its users to build skills too.
Could this move be a wake-up call for elearning vendors? It looks that way. There could be some interesting implications for corporate learning too as employees look to build skills through LinkedIn for the jobs they are looking to get – through LinkedIn.
