LinkedIn Launches its Online Learning Portal With Over 9,000 Courses

LinkedIn, the business-focused social network which Microsoft recently bought for an astounding $26 Billion, is now trying to turn over a new leaf. They have now introduced a new online-learning section with over 9,000 courses covering everything from coding and programming to writing and accounting.

Called “LinkedIn Learning”, it is built on content taken from the popular e-learning portal, Lynda. LinkedIn acquired the portal back in 2015 for $1.5 billion and is now finally making full use of their plethora of courses.

What is LinkedIn Learning?

LinkedIn Learning is an ambitious e-learning portal tailored to individuals. The subjects available include business, technology, and creative topics. The social network has also added some extra features to make the online learning system work better with their business-minded goal. Consequently, businesses looking to keep training their employees and even educational institutions exploring e-learning courses can make use of the portal.

Currently, individuals looking to start learning through LinkedIn will have to sign-up for LinkedIn’s Premium service. Once signed up, LinkedIn Premium users will get 25 new courses every week. You can also try out LinkedIn Learning for free for a whole month.

LinkedIn Learning for Business

Employers and HR managers can recommend courses for their employees and then track their performance through LinkedIn’s analytics products. The analytics tools can not only monitor employees’ progress but also look at the wider range of what is being studied as a point of reference.

The company has also said that they will soon be releasing an enterprise tier so that large companies can take subscriptions for their entire employee base.

Apart from its e-learning initiative, LinkedIn has introduced a handful of other changes. They announced an updated design for their desktop website which will come with a revamped newsfeed as well as new messaging features.

LinkedIn Introduces New Dedicated Service for Hiring Freelancers

Platforms for connecting freelancers with clients are not all that uncommon nowadays with Elance, Freelancer, Fiverr and many more. LinkedIn, the business-oriented social networking site, was behind in this aspect.

Now it looks like they’ve also decided to get in on the freelancing action.

LinkedIn has created a new freelance marketplace called ProFinder. The new marketplace is designed to help freelance professionals find clients both big and small that need their services.

With the new service, all you would have to do is fill out a brief description of the type of work you want done and you are matched with qualified professionals who are a best fit for your project.

How Does LinkedIn ProFinder Work?

In order to hire a freelancer, you will have to search for the service that you need. Currently there are over 140 areas of expertise listed at Linkedin that you can choose from.

After that, you will be required to fill in the form, detailing your specific needs, your location , the time frame, budget and job requirements.

LinkedIn says that within a few hours, you can receive up to 5 proposals from freelancers based on your request and LinkedIn profile.

You will then be contacted by the freelancers with a message, a price quote and also a link to their LinkedIn profiles.

What Makes ProFinder Different than Others?

Vaibhav Goel, the Product Lead for LinkedIn ProFinder, said in an interview that the ProFinder features deep integration with the LinkedIn network, something that makes it attractive when compared with other online freelancer services.

Quality of freelancers is also an issue. ProFinder takes care of this by letting you view the profile of the freelancers, including their work history, references and their connections. People can verify how genuine freelancers are from sources they can trust. This is a big factor in deciding who to hire and it certainly helps.

ProFinder is certainly great tool from a freelancer’s perspective. It’s an improved experience because instead of spending valuable time looking for services, you can hear directly from potential clients.

Some Concerns

But not everything is in favor for the freelancers, there are a couple of disadvantages to this too. One of those is that if the client’s projects on ProFinder don’t come as detailed project outlines. This means that there’s no way to find out the actual amount of work that is needed to be done.

With this problem, the freelancer has no way of setting an appropriate asking price for his/her project. There is also no way to ask questions from the client in regards to this matter either before applying for the project. You can only discuss the matter in detail once the client has accepted you and already confirmed a price.

Secondly, freelancers only have about 5 minutes to set up a proposal and have it sent to the client. So you have to act quickly or face getting locked out from presenting a proposal.

LinkedIn has to make a ton of improvements before ProFinder can become the de-facto leader for freelancers. However, it is good to see the world’s most well-known professional social network getting into the freelancing game. Hopefully, it will listen to concerns of all stakeholders if it wants to make ProFinder useful for the freelancing community.

Microsoft to BUY LINKEDIN

Microsoft has announced that it is planning to acquire LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, for $26.2 Billion in cash.

Yes, Microsoft announced today that it would buy LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 BILLION.

It is so far the biggest acquisition made by Microsoft, which has made 8 takeovers, including Skype in 2011 and Nokia in 2013, worth more than $1 Billion.

According to the tech giant, LinkedIn will retain its own brand and product, and also LinkedIn's existing CEO Jeff Weiner will remain as the company's chief executive.

LinkedIn will now become a part of Microsoft's productivity, and business processes segment and Weiner will report directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Here's what Nadella said about the deal:

"The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the world's professionals. Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet."

The offer of $196 per share on LinkedIn represents a premium of 49.5 per cent to LinkedIn's Friday closing price.

LinkedIn is the world’s most popular as well as largest professional social network and continues to grow. With the launch of new version of its mobile app last year, the company has increased its member engagement and enhanced its news feed to deliver better business insights.

Both Mr. Weiner and LinkedIn’s chairperson, co-founder and controlling shareholder Mr. Reid Hoffman back the deal.

"Just as we have changed the way the world connects to opportunity, this relationship with Microsoft, and the combination of their cloud and LinkedIn's network, now gives us a chance also to change the way the world works," Weiner said in the statement.

"For the last 13 years, we have been uniquely positioned to connect professionals to make them more productive and successful, and I’m looking forward to leading our team through the next chapter of our story."