5 ms·

Tekpub Has Been Acquired

49 points by fekberg 13y ago

streetwiseherc 13y ago
I like this. I would imagine this takes some of the stress out of Rob's daily life and will allow him to focus on creating new videos. He could be the next Jon Galloway! (Who Wants To Be a Pluralsight Millionaire?!)
jbigelow76 13y ago
Congrats to Rob. Tekpub started out skewed toward .NET related technologies but gradually went more in the open source direction, his original Node series really helped me get going with the technology and embracing Javascript more.
pg_bot 13y ago
First, congrats Rob on the exit. That being said, I may just have to get into the screen casting business since pluralsight's quality is terrible. They have no sense of editing or production values, and refuse to let you download the screencasts that you are paying for. Destroy all software and railscasts are on hiatus, and with peepcode acquired (by pluralsight), is there anyone left who is producing high quality content?
- mattchamb 13y ago
  I am both a current Tekpub, and former Pluralsight subscriber. I agree with your opinion about the quality of pluralsight. The reason I ditched my pluralsight subscription was because there is a lot of sub-par videos on there. Even though there were a lot fewer videos on tekpub, they were of so much higher quality. Unfortunately, I probably won't be reactivating my pluralsight subscription once the tekpub swap-over time runs out. Having said that, however, congrats to Rob for taking Tekpub to the next level.
- suhair 13y ago
  rubytapas (http://www.rubytapas.com/ http://www.rubytapas.com/) seems good
  - robconery 13y ago
    It's outstanding - wish I had Avdi's pipes!
- jbigelow76 13y ago
  I think the quality can be hit or miss, I've seen good, bad and mediocre on Pluralsight just because of the breadth of content. It's really no different than O'Reilly, Wrox or other tech book publishers since Pluralsight operates in the same manor with paying a diverse set of authors via royalties vs having an in house studio that puts out a more uniform product, some will be better than others (at least that's my understanding of the business model).
- joelhooks 13y ago
  They are obviously trying to correct for this by bringing in Rob and Geoffrey via acquisition, no. Two high production value video training sites bought in as many months. You definitely should though. The more the merrier :)
- robconery 13y ago
  I'm not stopping. One of the reasons I wanted to join forces was to unleash myself from running a business - I'm a much better producer :)
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > is there anyone left who is producing high quality content? http://www.lynda.com http://www.lynda.com
stirno 13y ago
I do hope this will raise the quality of Pluralsight content production -- Rob has, for me anyway, really set the bar for how content should be presented.
avenger123 13y ago
Definitely congratulations to Rob! I have been a TekPub annual subscriber since 2010 and its definitely been the case that its quality over quantity. PluralSight is also good depending on the author. It's obvious that some of the authors are solely doing it for the money and these tend to have the lower production values. Regardless, for what you are paying with PluralSight, there is enough quality content that something will be worthwhile.
- locusm 13y ago
  Yes this. With Pluralsight you just tend to follow certain authors. Tekpub was never hit and miss - majority of content was of really high quality.
  - theflork 13y ago
    which authors would you recommend? I've only seen Scott Allen's asp.net mvc4 - his explanations are very clear and easy to follow but he's def not a passionate speaker.
xtrumanx 13y ago
What about Pluralsight subscribers? Do they get access to Tekpub? I think Peepcode got acquired by Pluralsight and I don't think Pluralsight subscribers got access to Peepcode content.
- jbigelow76 13y ago
  I see all (I think) the Peepcode screencasts in Pluralsight, just search for author Geoffrey Grosenbach.
  - xtrumanx 13y ago
    Oh, I thought they were going to keep the sites separate. Presumably this list[0] contains all of Peepcode's content on Pluralsight? [0] http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-grosenbach http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-gro...
  - kariemali 13y ago
    Searching for peepcode or tekpub will list videos available from them regardless of the author.
- parasight 13y ago
  Your guess is wrong. I am a Pluralsight subscriber and I can watch Peepcode videos now.
  - xtrumanx 13y ago
    Are you watching them over at Peepcode's site or Pluralsight's?
    - sparkjoy 13y ago
      You can watch PeepCode videos at Pluralsight: http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-grosenbach http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-gro...
- 13y ago
topfunky 13y ago
Congrats to Rob! I'm the founder of PeepCode (also acquired by Pluralsight a few months ago). I feel like I've been traded up to an all-star team who is about to win the Super Bowl. Pluralsight is a great company and there's lots of great stuff about to be launched over the next few months.
- robconery 13y ago
  Thanks Geoffrey! I'm hoping we can do something together soon - it's been a long time in coming :)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
weavie 13y ago
Am I missing something? Clearly I am - these online courses are hugely popular, it blows me away seeing how many people have paid for certain courses on Udemy. I've tried running through a few courses on Coursera and whilst they are interesting they are incredibly slow. I end up running out of patience and just searching the net and reading up on the topics in about 10% of the time. I just can't see how watching these videos provide any more value than working though a good book that can be had for less than half the price. Are these paid for courses significantly better than the free MOOC courses? If so, how?
- r3m6 13y ago
  Paid and free MOOC do not differ much, but they have can significant advantages over a book, especially for subjects where you do not have already domain expertise: 1. Exercises 2. Community/forums/meetups 3. Exams (with prestigious names behind it)
- jamra 13y ago
  I remember Rob making a comment that .Net is his most popular topic. From a dotnet point of view, it is much easier for many programmers to watch videos instead of reading a book. For one, language is not as big a barrier because you have a visual example to go along with his narrative. The biggest problem I personally have with dotnet is the necessity to know all the nuances of whichever stack you are developing on. In learning MVC, Rob goes over every single issue a programmer may have in creating a web site, circumventing those moments where you get stuck trying to find out how to change how routing works. He also goes over a token based login that completely throws out the default dotnet implementation. In addition, he goes over creating a support site, dependency injection, and lots of other things that you would have to be an active member of the MVC community to even know it existed. He even posts his code to github. Basically, Rob acts as a mediator between the dotnet world and the open source linuxy way of doing things. Many of his comparisons are with Ruby on Rails. When I talk with people I know who code in C#, they hardly spend time reading about new trends in HTML and javascript and prefer to get the easy way by learning the dotnet way of doing things. As a dotnet developer, you (and me too) put yourself into a position of ignorance. Then you wait for someone more senior to come out with a simple method that you could use for rapid prototyping. You rely on that senior person not because you can't code but because you really don't know the nuances of the framework you are leaning on. This refusal to learn the bare bones of HTML and adopt some micro framework creates the phenomenon where you are kind of hosed into grabbing the quickest path to productivity. Edit: I edited quite a few things for clarity. Probably shouldn't submit so fast.
poissonpie 13y ago
Wow, did not see this one coming. Congrats to Rob. I have mixed feelings about it though, I can see that it's a good move for Rob - he really has a knack for production and if he gets to do more of that, it's better for the subscribers, but at the same time, I kind of liked the way tekpub was essentially a one man show.
- jcculb 13y ago
  Also liked how you could get the individual classes on an ala carte basis. Unfortunately that will go away with Pluralsight.
sergiotapia 13y ago
Congratulations to Rob! Tekpub is the reason I could learn ASP.Net MVC and is ultimately the main catalyst for my current job marketability. I wish him the very best!
martin1b 13y ago
Congrats Rob! I've had both tekpub and Pluralsight subscriptions over the years and was getting ready to sign up for one again. This makes the decision much easier. I always loved Tekpub's real-world style of teaching. Robs work over the years has really helped me grow as a developer. Joining forces will really help the development community as a whole. Great move Rob and Aaron!!

49 points by fekberg 13y ago

I like this. I would imagine this takes some of the stress out of Rob's daily life and will allow him to focus on creating new videos. He could be the next Jon Galloway! (Who Wants To Be a Pluralsight Millionaire?!)

jbigelow76 13y ago

Congrats to Rob. Tekpub started out skewed toward .NET related technologies but gradually went more in the open source direction, his original Node series really helped me get going with the technology and embracing Javascript more.

pg_bot 13y ago

First, congrats Rob on the exit. That being said, I may just have to get into the screen casting business since pluralsight's quality is terrible. They have no sense of editing or production values, and refuse to let you download the screencasts that you are paying for. Destroy all software and railscasts are on hiatus, and with peepcode acquired (by pluralsight), is there anyone left who is producing high quality content?

mattchamb 13y ago
I am both a current Tekpub, and former Pluralsight subscriber. I agree with your opinion about the quality of pluralsight. The reason I ditched my pluralsight subscription was because there is a lot of sub-par videos on there. Even though there were a lot fewer videos on tekpub, they were of so much higher quality. Unfortunately, I probably won't be reactivating my pluralsight subscription once the tekpub swap-over time runs out. Having said that, however, congrats to Rob for taking Tekpub to the next level.
suhair 13y ago
rubytapas (http://www.rubytapas.com/ http://www.rubytapas.com/) seems good
- robconery 13y ago
  It's outstanding - wish I had Avdi's pipes!
jbigelow76 13y ago
I think the quality can be hit or miss, I've seen good, bad and mediocre on Pluralsight just because of the breadth of content. It's really no different than O'Reilly, Wrox or other tech book publishers since Pluralsight operates in the same manor with paying a diverse set of authors via royalties vs having an in house studio that puts out a more uniform product, some will be better than others (at least that's my understanding of the business model).
joelhooks 13y ago
They are obviously trying to correct for this by bringing in Rob and Geoffrey via acquisition, no. Two high production value video training sites bought in as many months. You definitely should though. The more the merrier :)
robconery 13y ago
I'm not stopping. One of the reasons I wanted to join forces was to unleash myself from running a business - I'm a much better producer :)
Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> is there anyone left who is producing high quality content? http://www.lynda.com http://www.lynda.com

stirno 13y ago

I do hope this will raise the quality of Pluralsight content production -- Rob has, for me anyway, really set the bar for how content should be presented.

avenger123 13y ago

Definitely congratulations to Rob! I have been a TekPub annual subscriber since 2010 and its definitely been the case that its quality over quantity. PluralSight is also good depending on the author. It's obvious that some of the authors are solely doing it for the money and these tend to have the lower production values. Regardless, for what you are paying with PluralSight, there is enough quality content that something will be worthwhile.

locusm 13y ago
Yes this. With Pluralsight you just tend to follow certain authors. Tekpub was never hit and miss - majority of content was of really high quality.
- theflork 13y ago
  which authors would you recommend? I've only seen Scott Allen's asp.net mvc4 - his explanations are very clear and easy to follow but he's def not a passionate speaker.

xtrumanx 13y ago

What about Pluralsight subscribers? Do they get access to Tekpub? I think Peepcode got acquired by Pluralsight and I don't think Pluralsight subscribers got access to Peepcode content.

jbigelow76 13y ago
I see all (I think) the Peepcode screencasts in Pluralsight, just search for author Geoffrey Grosenbach.
- xtrumanx 13y ago
  Oh, I thought they were going to keep the sites separate. Presumably this list[0] contains all of Peepcode's content on Pluralsight? [0] http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-grosenbach http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-gro...
- kariemali 13y ago
  Searching for peepcode or tekpub will list videos available from them regardless of the author.
parasight 13y ago
Your guess is wrong. I am a Pluralsight subscriber and I can watch Peepcode videos now.
- xtrumanx 13y ago
  Are you watching them over at Peepcode's site or Pluralsight's?
  - sparkjoy 13y ago
    You can watch PeepCode videos at Pluralsight: http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-grosenbach http://pluralsight.com/training/Authors/Details/geoffrey-gro...
13y ago

topfunky 13y ago

Congrats to Rob! I'm the founder of PeepCode (also acquired by Pluralsight a few months ago). I feel like I've been traded up to an all-star team who is about to win the Super Bowl. Pluralsight is a great company and there's lots of great stuff about to be launched over the next few months.

robconery 13y ago
Thanks Geoffrey! I'm hoping we can do something together soon - it's been a long time in coming :)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

weavie 13y ago

Am I missing something? Clearly I am - these online courses are hugely popular, it blows me away seeing how many people have paid for certain courses on Udemy. I've tried running through a few courses on Coursera and whilst they are interesting they are incredibly slow. I end up running out of patience and just searching the net and reading up on the topics in about 10% of the time. I just can't see how watching these videos provide any more value than working though a good book that can be had for less than half the price. Are these paid for courses significantly better than the free MOOC courses? If so, how?

r3m6 13y ago
Paid and free MOOC do not differ much, but they have can significant advantages over a book, especially for subjects where you do not have already domain expertise: 1. Exercises 2. Community/forums/meetups 3. Exams (with prestigious names behind it)
jamra 13y ago
I remember Rob making a comment that .Net is his most popular topic. From a dotnet point of view, it is much easier for many programmers to watch videos instead of reading a book. For one, language is not as big a barrier because you have a visual example to go along with his narrative. The biggest problem I personally have with dotnet is the necessity to know all the nuances of whichever stack you are developing on. In learning MVC, Rob goes over every single issue a programmer may have in creating a web site, circumventing those moments where you get stuck trying to find out how to change how routing works. He also goes over a token based login that completely throws out the default dotnet implementation. In addition, he goes over creating a support site, dependency injection, and lots of other things that you would have to be an active member of the MVC community to even know it existed. He even posts his code to github. Basically, Rob acts as a mediator between the dotnet world and the open source linuxy way of doing things. Many of his comparisons are with Ruby on Rails. When I talk with people I know who code in C#, they hardly spend time reading about new trends in HTML and javascript and prefer to get the easy way by learning the dotnet way of doing things. As a dotnet developer, you (and me too) put yourself into a position of ignorance. Then you wait for someone more senior to come out with a simple method that you could use for rapid prototyping. You rely on that senior person not because you can't code but because you really don't know the nuances of the framework you are leaning on. This refusal to learn the bare bones of HTML and adopt some micro framework creates the phenomenon where you are kind of hosed into grabbing the quickest path to productivity. Edit: I edited quite a few things for clarity. Probably shouldn't submit so fast.

poissonpie 13y ago

Wow, did not see this one coming. Congrats to Rob. I have mixed feelings about it though, I can see that it's a good move for Rob - he really has a knack for production and if he gets to do more of that, it's better for the subscribers, but at the same time, I kind of liked the way tekpub was essentially a one man show.

jcculb 13y ago
Also liked how you could get the individual classes on an ala carte basis. Unfortunately that will go away with Pluralsight.

sergiotapia 13y ago

Congratulations to Rob! Tekpub is the reason I could learn ASP.Net MVC and is ultimately the main catalyst for my current job marketability. I wish him the very best!

martin1b 13y ago

Congrats Rob! I've had both tekpub and Pluralsight subscriptions over the years and was getting ready to sign up for one again. This makes the decision much easier. I always loved Tekpub's real-world style of teaching. Robs work over the years has really helped me grow as a developer. Joining forces will really help the development community as a whole. Great move Rob and Aaron!!