One: You save money. Why spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on go-to-market or sales enablement materials? Let your competitors incur those costs.
Two: You save time. The best product marketing initiatives occur in a joint process between the marketing leader and the product marketing consultant. But this requires commitment on your part: in initial project definition, draft review, and final publication.
Three: You save trouble. If your product marketing content has an effective call to action, there is the danger that a prospect may act on it, creating more work for your sales organization.
You can save money, time, and trouble by your silence. Let your competitors bear the burden of defining your product to your prospects. They will be more than happy to do so.
At 3:40 the phone in my bedroom made a funny noise and displayed a message that the power was out at the main handset.
Oh, and my clock wasn’t displaying the time.
So, how about that router light?
When wi-fi is available, the router light is blue.
When it isn’t, the light is red.
This afternoon, there was no light at all.
I’m a Southern California Edison customer, but I had problems getting to its website on cellular. The power outage affected a good swath of northwest Ontario, so I guess everyone was trying to use cellular internet.
My Facebook app could (somewhat) connect, and people on the O.N.Z group were reporting estimated fix times between 5:30 pm and 9:30 pm.
Then I received a text: not from SCE, but from my Internet Service Provider.
“There is a service outage affecting your area. Restoration estimated by 9:30 PM.”
How would they know? It wasn’t the ISP’s problem.
A second text followed.
“The service interruption affecting…services in and around your area is being caused by a power outage. Restoration estimated by 4:40 PM.”
By this time I had left home to go to a place outside the affected area…with air conditioning. But I continued to monitor O.N.Z. (a private Facebook group, so no links or quotes). And someone reported that power was back.
So I checked my ISP and thermostat apps and confirmed this.
A technical problem can have so many causes…including a loss of electricity that affects all things power-dependent.
Note the “deprecated” and “legacy” data types. In 1993, Type 4 was the gold standard for fingerprint images; now it’s just “legacy.” And forget about binary representations or anything less than 500 ppi.
Time marches on.
But some people have been around for much of the ride. I scanned the lists of working group members and found Kenneth Blue, Tom Buss, Roland Fournier, Patrick Grother, Mike McCabe, John Splain, Mark Walch, and many others who remember Type 4 and 250 ppi binary images.
And the canvassees included government and industry representatives from within and outside of the United States, including Canada, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Slovakia, Switzerland, other countries I probably mnissed, and INTERPOL.
If Europe or other countries do break away from NIST standards, it will be a rupturing break.
People memorize arcane text strings when they use them a lot. But until now I never memorized NIST SP 500-290…even though it refers to a document I reference fairly constantly.
There has been ongoing debate on whether age verification should be implemented at the website level or at the operating system level…or not at all.
In the United Kingdom, Apple is opting for OS level age verification, according to the BBC.
“Apple is rolling out age checks for iPhone and iPad users in the UK that will ask them to verify if they are adults to access “certain services” such as 18-plus apps.
“After customers accept the latest iOS 26.4 software update, they will be asked to verify their age, which they can do by providing a credit card or scanning their ID, according to an Apple support page.
“Those who do not confirm how old they are or are underage will have web content filters turned on automatically.”
“When creating a new Apple Account or using Apple services, you may see a prompt asking you to confirm that you’re an adult. This is required by law in some countries and regions.”
Regarding that last sentence, is OS level age verification REQUIRED? Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch says no:
“Carlo told the BBC she believed Apple had “crossed the Rubicon” with its new software update which she described as “more like ransomware”, and which she said essentially left millions of Brits owning a “child’s device”, unless they complied with the age checks.
“And she said while she believed children’s online safety was vital, it required more thoughtful tech responsibility and not “sweeping, draconian shock demands by foreign companies for all of our IDs and credit cards”.”
Note the appeal to resist the “American” company, which raises questions about whether Apple’s collection of this information potentially violates United Kingdom privacy laws if the data is sent to Cupertino.
So why did Apple do it if UK law doesn’t require it?
Two reasons:
Future proofing. While the UK and other jurisdictions do not require age verification at the OS level now, they may require it at some point. If so, Apple has already implemented it in the UK (for iPhones and iPads) and can implement it elsewhere.
CYA. A jury in California awarded damages after finding that Meta and Google were responsible for a woman’s anxiety and depression, suffered because of her social media use as a child. Apple doesn’t want to face a similar lawsuit.
Incidentally, it’s interesting to note that these and other stories pair “Meta” and “Google.” Does no one refer to “Alphabet” (Google’s parent company) any more?
I have an old iPhone with a Lightning charger port. I can’t buy this today in the European Union. (Or anywhere, but we’ll get to that.) Why? Because of the EU’s Common Charger Directive.
“Because the EU has standardised charging ports for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices, all new devices sold in the EU must now support USB-C charging.”
Which devices?
“From 28 December 2024, the rules apply to mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, videogame consoles, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systemsand earbuds sold in the EU.”
So all of this went into effect in 2024?
Um, no.
Laptops
Because there is one additional requirement.
“From 28 April 2026, they will also apply to laptops.”
(Sorry, desktop computer users. You may still have old style power connections.)
Google Gemini.
For the record, Bredemarket’s U.S. purchased laptop already has a USB-C charging port. Because when the manufacturers were forced to implement this for Europe, it was easier to do it for the rest of the world.
So everyone is happy and enjoying the EU’s listed benefits of consumer convenience, e-waste reduction, and cost savings.
Yes, everyone is happy…for now.
The future
But what happens when wireless charging supports up to 240W? Then you get some REAL cost savings, because manufacturers—especially of small devices—can reduce cost by eliminating charging ports altogether.
Well, except in the EU, where charging mechanisms other than USB-C are illegal. Not just illegal to market: illegal to even sell in the first place.
It’s not that big a deal to throw a USB-C port on to a laptop, which has several ports already.
But a phone?
Even my older iPhone has reduced the number of ports down to one. (Separate headphone jacks disappeared years ago.)
Imagine if Apple, Samsung, and everyone else could sell smartphones with ZERO ports. Not only does this reduce cost, but it helps to preserve the integrity of the device.
And the phone manufacturers will take advantage of this in Asia, the Americas, and Africa.
Google Gemini.
While still maintaining the government-mandated (and more expensive) USB-C versions in Europe.
Because once a government mandates something, it’s nearly impossible to change.
As you know, I’m tired of the simplistic “we use AI” marketing messaging. One reason is because when prospects hear “we use AI,” they may respond with “Oh, that technology that hallucinates.” This is NOT a good selling point.
But what if your tool, whether it is artificial intelligence or a thousand Third World workers, could actually IDENTIFY errors?
Bredemarket 