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LinkedIn Launches Online Training, Computer-Assisted Messages

The launch of LinkedIn Learning is the long-awaited integration of business education company Lynda.com, which LinkedIn bought for $1.5 billion in 2015. The subscription service suggests courses LinkedIn’s 450 million members might need to advance in their careers.

By Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle

LinkedIn on Thursday added online business courses and a computerized messaging assistant, services that both take advantage of the two biggest deals in the social networking company’s history.

The launch of LinkedIn Learning is the long-awaited integration of business education company Lynda.com, which LinkedIn bought for $1.5 billion in 2015. The subscription service suggests courses LinkedIn’s 450 million members might need to advance in their careers.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn is working on a smarter messaging system that includes a computer program that can automatically help schedule meetings. The artificial intelligence program, or bot, provided a teaser of what might come from Microsoft’s pending $26.2 billion deal to buy the Mountain View company.

That deal isn’t expected to close until the end of the year and there were few other hints about how the Microsoft takeover might change LinkedIn. CEO Jeff Weiner said LinkedIn teams are beginning to explore possibilities, yet still need to “walk before they run.”

“The stuff you saw today has been in the works long before we were in discussions with Microsoft,” Weiner said during the company’s first press conference since the merger was announced in June.

LinkedIn unveiled several redesigned products, including a desktop home page that is simpler to navigate and acts more like its mobile app. The page, which the company plans to roll out this year, launches features like suggested new jobs without switching to a different Web page.

Edward Terpening, an analyst with the research firm Altimeter Group, wasn’t blown away by the redesign. “Like a lot of social platforms, they seem to be in a copy mode, copying features, copying looks,” Terpening said. “What I saw today looks very much like Facebook.”

But the Lynda.com integration was “interesting and unique,” he said. “That is potentially very useful.”

LinkedIn Learning costs $30 per month, or $300 for one year, but is included in LinkedIn’s subscription plans. The service will suggest courses, such as HTML design or management training, that member might need based on their profiles.

Tanya Staples, a former teacher who is now LinkedIn’s senior director of content and production, said the service could help workers stay ahead of the technology that’s constantly changing their jobs.

“As a teacher, I could see that we were no longer going to be able to teach all the skills people need in life to set them up for longtime success in their career,” she said. “The harsh reality is that the useful shelf life of skills has shrunk to less than five years.”

The other highlight was improvements to LinkedIn messages. Messaging within LinkedIn has increased 240 percent in the past year. Mark Hull, senior director of messaging, demonstrated how a bot was able to help two people sending notes to each other find available times on their calendars to schedule an in-person meeting.

So far, LinkedIn is only planning to introduce the calendar bot, although Microsoft is openly experimenting with using AI for “conversational computing.”

However, Microsoft’s most public chatbot, called Tay, was a disaster. Within hours of its release, Microsoft had to take Tay down after Twitter members tricked it into posting a series of offensive and insensitive tweets.

In an interview, Hull wouldn’t comment on other potential bots his team might include in the future.

“There’s a lot of possibilities out there that we can explore as it relates to Microsoft and working with other partners,” Hull said. “Right now, we just want to make sure we’re building services that people find useful, not tech for tech’s sake.“

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©2016 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.