video2brain

video2brain
legal form	GmbH
founding	2002
Seat	Graz , Austria
Number of employees	60
Branch	Teaching aids
Website	www.video2brain.com

video2brain is a brand of LinkedIn Austria and produces instructional videos for photographers, graphic designers, web and screen designers , programmers, IT professionals, marketers and office users in German, Spanish, French and with a focus on IT, business and creative topics Japanese language. The offer is supplemented by English-language video training from Lynda.com. The videos are distributed via stream on the company's homepage as well as on the Linkedin platform under Linkedin Learning. The publishing program includes around 2000 courses in German, 1200 courses in Spanish, 1300 courses in French and 500 courses in Japanese (as of September 2017).

history

The company was founded in Graz in 2002 by Gerhard Koren. The instructional videos were sold on CD and DVD in bookshops, initially in cooperation with Galileo Press (now Rheinwerk Verlag) , and from 2005 with Addison-Wesley and Markt + Technik , which belonged to the Pearson media group .

From 2009 to 2013, the official video training courses for software manufacturer Adobe Inc. (Imprint: Adobe Press) were produced by video2brain in English. The courses cover the curriculum of the Adobe Certified Associate certification offered by Adobe and are the only video-based teaching materials that have been approved for this certification (“Certified Associate Approved Courseware”). video2brain is an official "Adobe Certified Training Provider".

The numerous video training courses on Adobe Photoshop , which were designed by authors such as Uli Staiger , Calvin Hollywood , Olaf Giermann and Pavel Kaplun , were widely used. Videos are currently offered for every popular software in the areas of web, office, marketing, programming, IT, 3D, CAD, design, illustration and image processing. The program is supplemented by courses on soft skills with topics such as communication, negotiation, project management or leadership & management. Video2brain received the 2008 innovation award from Initiative Mittelstand for the personalized customer area on its website .

The videos could be operated via an interface programmed in Adobe Flash, which was started as a Windows (.exe) or Mac application (.app) but also in the browser with Flash plug-in. The training courses were later also offered as a download. The concept of the flash surface was retained.

In 2009 a subscription model was introduced. Since then it has been possible to use all videos from video2brain for the duration of the subscription at no additional cost (apart from a few outdated offers). The premium offer, where you could download the courses and use them without an internet connection, was particularly interesting. Although the terms and conditions stated that the user had to delete all materials after subscribing, all courses could of course continue to be used after termination.

In February 2013 video2brain was taken over by the US educational material provider Lynda.com . With the takeover by Lynda.com, the English language program offered at the time was discontinued and transferred to the Lynda.com library. On April 9, 2015, LinkedIn announced the acquisition of lynda.com, which it actually took.

In June 2015, the old Flash interface was replaced by new apps for all download offers. There are apps for Windows, Android and iOS. Since then, the videos are no longer available directly via download, but have to be downloaded with the apps. It is not possible to use the apps offline, which means that no more offers can be used after the end of the subscription.

In December 2016, the LinkedIn Learning platform was launched, on which all video2brain courses are available in addition to the English-language Lynda.com courses. The content of the program is identical, but Linkedin Learning offers some additional features. In order to use Linkedin Learning, end customers need a LinkedIn profile. However, if you take out a subscription there, you automatically have access to the courses in all languages offered by video2brain and Lynda.com. The subscription prices are EUR 21.99 for a monthly subscription and EUR 221.88 for an annual subscription (prices vary slightly depending on the country and tax rate). The exercise files are included, the difference between standard and premium as on video2brain is no longer applicable. A subscription with a download option is still no longer offered.

criticism

In June 2015, the previously advertised old download option was switched off without prior notice and instead a download was made available via app. This deprived premium subscribers of the opportunity to watch the video training offline. The new interface does not offer a menu structure as before and excludes all platforms for which no app has been made available. Among other things, it is only possible to use the training under Linux via detours such as emulators.

In addition, the apps caused other problems. The training courses have to be downloaded again for each computer and user. A central network hard drive can also no longer be used due to the different encryption. Streaming to a television set has also become impossible. Computers without installation options (company computers without administrator access) can no longer be used. With many Android devices, the scarce internal memory is used by the app, either because no expansion via an SD card is possible or the app is not able to use it.

This of course met with criticism. video2brain therefore offered its premium subscriptions that they could also cancel their subscription during the term. Critics say that video2brain had undertaken to make the trainings available offline, so video2brain was in breach of contract with its customers. Information about the limitations of the new apps was also hesitant and insufficient.

This also affects all customers who previously purchased individual training courses via download instead of DVD. Despite the problems, the app in the Android app store, for example, is mostly rated well.