Pluralsight acquires PeepCode | Hacker News Reader

Pluralsight acquires PeepCode

peepcode.com

76 pointslazyatom21 comments

I feel bad, but I tweeted my complaints about the acquisition last night. I wish nothing but the best for Topfunky. He's done SUCH an amazing job. His screencasts are visually appealing, the audio is perfect, the presentation is amazing. I personally preferred the $12 ala carte model. Geoffrey would make these nice little preview videos for each of his broadcasts. Often I'd buy the video based on that alone (even if I wasn't sure I was interested in the content - Elixir is the most recent example)

While I DO think subscription based courseware has its place. I hate having to create an account (with a Captcha - can we PLEASE get past that?) AND enter a credit card. They say it's to protect them against piracy... but think... how does that work? Their videos appear on torrent trackers and they know it was you and charge your card? (I admit, I have no idea)

I have a degree in graphic design, so I've always appreciated just how much artistic flair Peepcode had. I find Pluralsight so much less appealing.

I feel it now leaves a void. Maybe Ryan Bates will start doing more than just Rails.

I think there's something to be said for both subscriptions and a la carte. Subscriptions make sense for content producers because it gives them recurring revenue. It also makes sense for consumers because they don't subscribe to learn how to do one thing. They subscribe for the guarantee of a consistent flow of knowledge -> long term learning. I think of a la carte video as the equivalent of a Stack Overflow Q&A. How likely are you to buy a $6, 15-minute video on how to do x with y the first time you see it? The real value comes when you have such a breadth of these 15-minute videos that the content library begins to form a comprehensive reference for various bite-sized pieces of knowledge that users will ultimately need.

This is what my co-founders and I trying to do with Bitcast(https://www.bitcast.io). We're finding that model works well, and it definitely offers both consumers and content producers a different business model to interact with.

Would love to hear what you think!

Wow, this is a great deal. PeepCode's main growth pre-dates HN, I believe, but it was one of the earliest screencasting success stories and, I believe, entirely bootstrapped. While more people got involved with PeepCode over the years, this is a great solo founder success story from my POV :-)

Thanks, Peter!

I've purchased something like 20 or 30 credits on peepcode over the years and I really like the model of buying, downloading and "owning" the videos. I'm not a fan of web-only subscription models.

I've always loved PeepCode's focus on design and I hope that Geoffrey brings some of that influence to PluralSight. From the little bit of poking around on their website that I've done, I think they could really benefit from this. What they have feels very "clipart" influenced with little style.

I love the buy-to-own policy at PeepCode, too, and have had the annual unlimited subscription there for several years. I just looked up the individual plan at PluralSight and it's horrible. For 3 times what it costs at PeepCode you get much less access:

"Offline viewing allows you to cache up to 30 course modules on your mobile device. Simply choose the modules you want to watch offline and our app will cache them on your device. It's super simple. Each module will automatically be deleted after 30 days (or when you no longer have a Plus subscription) and you can always choose to delete them manually to make room for more."

They reach into your device to pull stuff off! Ugh.

No single purchases either, because they don't actually sell anything.

Here's hoping that the OSS, no-DRM, buy-to-own ideas from PeepCode take hold at PluralSight.

This is probably good for the Peepcode folks (at least monetarily), but I'm shocked. In my experience, companies like Peepcode (and also O'Reilly) provide cheaper content in a "DRM-free, own it yourself" model without treating customers like cheats and crooks. It's the exact opposite of Pluralsight's model. Pluralsight thrives on expensive and stupid silverlight based streaming and "limited offline caching" for higher tier paying subscribers. It's all proprietary content delivery that cannot be reused on another device as easily as non-DRM stuff. As a long time annual subscriber of Peepcode, I'd just stop using it if it moves to the Pluralsight model after this acquisition. If that happens, well, it was good while it lasted (and a pity that good products and services eventually get taken over by paranoid companies that cannot adapt with the times). Pluralsight won't miss me as a Peepcode subscriber - this is just something I wanted to vent out.

Am i the only one here concerned about this move?. While PeepCode is renowned for top quality content, this acquisition may deteriorate PeepCode with PluralSight's mediocre level of quality. This feels like stackoverflow being acquired by that hyphen separated site.

I am subscriber to both PeepCode and PluralSight. The high quality of PeepCode's screencasts is something that PluralSight can make use of. Though PluralSight primarily catered to Microsoft developers they seem to be of late focused on creating quality content for open source developers as well. I believe this is a win-win for PluralSight and developers.

I'm a pluralsight subscriber and an occasional peepcode purchaser. Both are well worth the cost. I'll be looking forward to possibly having access to all the peepcode productions that look interesting but I could never justify purchasing a la carte. Congrats to both parties.

The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not I'll get to hear Geoffrey say "It's PeepCode!" again. That's kinda become a hypnotic trigger to my brain to start learning over this years.

Other than that, I've been a happy subscriber to PluralSight going on a year now probably and a credit addict at PeepCode for years. One thing I've always wished about PluralSight was that it covered open source topics as timely and nuanced as it does .NET topics, and one thing I've always wished about PeepCode was that it plowed through it's old 'Upcoming' list a lot faster. This move at least seems like a perfect match and so I'm very happy for both sides and to be a customer.

I've been a Pluralsight customer for a while and find it money well spent. This is the first time I'm hearing of PeepCode and I hope that Pluralsight customers (and PeepCode customers) will benefit from this acquisition.

I'm a pluralsight subscriber, and I'm both excited and a bit nervous about this. Excited because I get to finally get access to high quality training videos in the open source areas (I'm hoping for really good python and ruby stuff). I'm nervous because I'm yet to master all the microsoft stack already on Pluralsight, and now I've got even more things i need to learn to keep up in this industry!

Congrats Geoffrey and Company!

PeepCode's screencasts and other materials are great. They are extremely focused high quality productions that merit more than a single watch to appreciate all the insights. Wishing you all the best with the acquisition and future work!

Sweet! I'm a fan of both. I of course have been following PeepCode, but right now I'm doing Alan Dipert's Clojure course on PluralSight. It's nice to have my worlds come together.

Congrats to Geoffrey and his team! PeepCode's screencast have been a huge time saver for us and I hope this acquisition will only allow them to do even more awesome things.

Awesome news! Pluralsight is the bomb! They have wonderful content already. But, add PeepCode to the mix and they are unstoppable. Pluralsight+PeepCode=Awesome!

This is great news, congrats! I'm looking forward to coverage of additional languages, especially Python.

Pluralsight is mainly focusing on Microsoft, I wish peepcode will always maintain its quality.

Congratulations Geoffrey and welcome to the Pluralsight team!

Very excited to see Peepcode tuts coming to the Pluralsight library. Pluralsight is broadening their coverage, and it's great to see Open Source front and center!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com