LinkedIn Offers Users Free Lynda.com Courses for the First Time

LinkedIn’s marriage with Lynda.com is beginning to take shape.

The professional network is offering its users a free trial to Lynda.com — 30 days for those with premium accounts or 21 days for non-paying LinkedIn users. A spokesperson confirmed that it’s the first time LinkedIn has offered any sponsorship like this around Lynda.com, the online education company it acquired for $1.5 billion back in April. Non-LinkedIn users can also try the site for free, but for just 10 days.

At the time, the acquisition was lauded by most company outsiders. LinkedIn wants more content, especially high-level content that might help train employees for new jobs or promotions. Earlier this month, Lynda offered a course on developing apps on the Apple Watch the same day Apple announced software updates for the watch at its annual developers conference.

Those are the kinds of classes LinkedIn is likely looking for, and Lynda.com has them. The benefit for Lynda: Access to LinkedIn’s 360-plus million registered users. Getting Lynda.com in front of that user base will be critical for LinkedIn, in part to build a potential revenue stream but also to justify the whopping $1.5 billion price tag. These kinds of promotions, plus combining subscription packages at some point down the line, should help with that.

The integration between the two companies has been relatively quiet until now. With the exception of a few suggested courses in LinkedIn’s Slideshare app, this is the first real evidence that LinkedIn and Lynda.com are now on the same team. For example, you can’t take a Lynda.com course on LinkedIn yet, though that seems like a logical next step. The two companies also have separate subscription models, but an integration there seems inevitable, too.

LinkedIn

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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