LinkedIn's Newest Acquisition

LinkedIn acquired an online education company Lynda.com few days ago for $1.5 billion - this acquisition is LinkedIn’s biggest ever and will allow the company to have access to instructional videos on topics including web development, photography and design, wherein these courses will be promoted to LinkedIn’s 350 million users.

Considering that the digital economy is becoming increasingly data-driven, LinkedIn could potentially utilize Lynda data in the following fashion:

• LinkedIn recently launched a product that allows advertisers to buy ads across the web using its data. LinkedIn can now append Lynda's valuable first-party data to the offering should it so choose. Lynda's data is goldmine for some advertisers – Adobe would probably love to get ads for its Creative Suite in front Lynda's design students -- and Lynda already seems to be using that data in some way. A visit to its Design section brought up 28 ad tags according to the browser extension Ghostery. Included among them were the ad exchange AppNexus and retargeter Criteo.
• Much of LinkedIn's revenue comes from its Talent Solutions platform, so it's not a stretch to imagine recruiters getting notifications about people who complete courses for the skills they're looking for. This could be a win for both parties. Recruiters get the people they need, and people in need get jobs. It would also make LinkedIn more indispensable, raising the bar for competitors to challenge it.

http://adage.com/article/digital/linkedin-s-1-5-billion-lynda-purchase-data/297986/