Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States, and my former friends will ignore the Bredemarket blog as usual.
But so will my real friends. Food and football are much more compelling.
So the Bredemarket blog will take advantage of this tomorrow.
Hold your feathers.
Some of you have heard of Dave Winer, who started Scripting News…when?
“Scripting News was started in 1997, by me, Dave Winer.
“Or 1994 or 1996 or whenever you think it actually started.
“I wrote my first blog posts in 1994, that’s for sure.”
Because of his early interest in immediate and direct sharing of information without intermediaries, Winer is considered as one of the first bloggers. And he has undeniable longevity, still publishing today.
But there is a blogger that preceded Winer, Justin Hall, Jorn Barger, Peter Merholz, and others.
And me.
For the record, I didn’t write my first blog post until October 14, 2003.
“Why did synthetica start with fake bluegrass sounds? Why not? This is the Ontario Empoblog, or the blog for Ontario Emperor, which has nothing and everything to do with Canada, New Mexico, and Texas, but also California, which is a location in California. It exists in cyberspace, which is also synthetic.
“The Ontario Empoblog may or may not touch on a variety of subjects, including music, poetry, poker, the supposed familial relationship between Brian Eno and Slim Whitman, the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop (1,121 – I checked), various comments about frogs, and the nature of nature.”
So back then I discussed synthetic music and frogs. Today I discuss synthetic identities and wildebeests. Not much has changed.
What were we talking about?
Oh yeah, the first blogger, predating everyone else by decades.
And blogging on a physical medium, seven inch wide circles of vinyl.
Because I maintain that the first blogger was John Lennon.
Although he didn’t start out that way.
When Lennon and his band signed a recording contract with a subsidiary of EMI in 1962, the four of them became cogs in a monstrous machine.
They had to report to EMI’s studio, record for an EMI producer, and were almost forced to record someone else’s songs. After they recorded multiple takes (some with a session drummer), their first EMI recording was processed through the EMI sausage system and released in the UK. (EMI’s U.S. subsidiary didn’t want it.)
The September 4, 1962 recording of “Love Me Do” (with Ringo Starr drumming) was released as a single about a month later, on October 5, 1962.
(Most subsequent releases of the song used the September 11 version with Andy White drumming.)
Of course, some later Beatles releases took longer than a month to travel from the studio to the record shops. For example, “When I’m Sixty-Four” was recorded on December 6, 20, and 21, 1966, but was not released on record until May 26, 1967 (in the U.K.; June 2 in the U.S.).
But the times, they were a’changing.
Within the year, the Beatles would have their own record label. Apple was still distributed by EMI, but the Beatles now had more control over the process, especially for their solo releases.
And John Lennon had things he wanted to say…now.
His first chance to practice immediacy was on a song formally credited to The Beatles, but actually recorded by Lennon with Paul McCartney’s help on piano, bass, and drums. Lennon and Yoko Ono married in March 1969. Lennon (with McCartney) recorded “The Ballad of John and Yoko” on April 14, and Apple released it on May 30. Quickly.
“In his biography, McCartney states that Lennon had a sudden inspiration for the song and had suggested that the two of them should record it immediately, without waiting for the other Beatles to return.”
Then Lennon turned to his solo career, which up to this point had consisted of two solo albums with Yoko Ono. Now Lennon started releasing singles.
Lennon subsequently re-focused on albums rather than singles and didn’t release songs as quickly. But those four singles achieved Lennon’s goal of getting something out quickly.
Like a blogger.
Lennon died before technology allowed musicians (or pirates) to post music files directly on the World Wide Web for immediate download. You can, um, imagine what Lennon could have done if those capabilities had existed in 1969.
Or in 1962.
June 1962, when Ringo Starr was still playing at Butlins with Rory Storm.
Another SoCal Tech Forum presentation on Saturday, this one on banking technology from Carey Ransom of BankTech Ventures.
Only a small reference to financial identity, but excellent nonetheless. While I live-posted the event here on my personal LinkedIn account, I wanted to summarize my three main takeaways from Bredemarket’s perspective.
Yes, community banks need to differentiate. Perhaps back in the 1980s before the advent of national banks, community banks could offer a standard suite of services for their communities. But now they’re competing against national banks that do business in their prospects’ communities, and in their prospects’ phones. (We will get to phones in a minute.)
One example Ransom gave: why do community banks offer credit cards? Are their credit cards better than the credit cards from the Really Big (Banking) Bunch? Probably not.
But unlike the Capital Ones and Chimes of the world, community banks know their communities. And they know what local businesses need, and are ideally suited to deliver this. (We will get to services in two minutes.)
Yes, I know that Bank of America may have someone attending and sponsoring your local events, but that person is not Brian Moynihan. And if you don’t know who Moynihan is, your prospects don’t know him either.
Some time ago I wrote a post about shifts in the banking industry, most notably from imposing branch buildings to locations within grocery stores to your mobile phones.
But John, you may be saying to yourself, you can’t bank on a phone. How do you deposit checks? And how do you get cash?
Well, let’s look at this:
In fact, bank branches are so irrelevant to today’s—and tomorrow’s—bank prospects and customers that Ransom referred to a $3 million dollar bank branch as a really expensive billboard. Probably none of the people who are reading this post WANT to go into a bank branch.
And those that do? Here’s a little secret: if the average age of the people who bank at your bank is in their 70s, they will…um…not be long-term bank customers. The 18 year olds that will bank for decades? They’re opening accounts on their phones. Can they use a phone to open an account at your bank? And why would they do so? (See the differentiation discussion above.)
One way a bank can differentiate is via the services they offer.
At the most basic level, a bank can make money by loaning the funds they receive from deposits.
But they can offer many more services to 21st century clients, thanks to legislation such as the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act that allow financial holding companies to own financial or complementary firms.
And not just investments and wealth management.
Ransom provided an illustrative example: cybersecurity.
Banks need to have expertise in cybersecurity to stay alive, and to comply with Know Your Customer and other financial regulations.
So why not offer cybersecurity services to their customers?
This not only gives the banks another revenue stream, but also reduces the risk that their own customers will experience fraud from hacks.
I know I said there were three takeaways. I lied.
Ransom also noted that CapitalOne spends 20% on marketing, including everything from TV ads to cafes. Your typical community bank spends much less, maybe 1%.
How are your prospects going to know what differentiates your bank if they don’t have awareness of those differentiators?
Perhaps you need content such as case studies or white papers. Even blog posts help ensure that your firm comes up in LLM answers. Your prospects aren’t watching ABC, CBS, or NBC commercials.
Or perhaps you need proposal or analysis services.
Bredemarket, a provider of content, proposal, and analysis services to technology (and identity) firms, can work with you to create the words you need. Learn about my offerings and book a free meeting here.
This is a follow up to “Arguments for Blogging: Visibility…and Revenue.”
When I converted it to video form, for once I chose a 21st century song.
Well, it was from a 20th century band.
So visit https://bredemarket.com/mark/.
This post includes an unprecedented level of name-dropping. As can be expected in a post on the positive effects of a blogging cadence, I mention Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. But I also mention Loren Feldman, Neil Patel, me, Bredebot, Roland Fournier, and Dean Nicolls.
So let’s begin.
Ever read the book Naked Conversations?
I never have, but I imagined that it went something like this.
Robert: I’m naked.
Shel: I’m naked too.
Robert: Let’s talk.
(An aside for those who are fans of repurposing content: the dialog itself was adapted from a comment of mine on a Loren Feldman short.)
Actually, the book isn’t like that, the famous (and patented) shower picture to the contrary.
Here’s the synopsis of Naked Conversations:
“According to experts Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers — meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line.”
Of course, the book was written in 2006. And therefore we know it’s no longer valid in 2025, and that blogging is dead.
Or is it?
Neil Patel’s NP Digital just completed a study of companies that blog vs. companies that don’t.
And the companies that blog saw an 18.2% decline over 12 months in SEO traffic.
But the companies that don’t blog saw a 39.7% decline in SEO traffic over that same period.
So while SEO traffic is declining, blogging helps mitigate the decline.
Not that you care about SEO. That’s old school. LLM traffic is what you want to optimize these days. And the companies that don’t blog saw a 12-month increase of 6.5% in LLM traffic.
But…the companies that do blog saw an 85.8% LLM traffic increase.
And as for revenue growth…well, you’ll have to read the article for that. Or just look at Neil’s pretty picture.
But why is blogging so beneficial to SEO traffic, and LLM traffic, and revenue?
“The stark contrast in outcomes suggests that search engines and AI systems are increasingly prioritizing recently updated, actively maintained content sources over static websites….
“The 85.8% increase in LLM traffic correlates with AI systems preferring sources that demonstrate ongoing expertise and current knowledge, not just historical authority.”
Bredemarket (well, with Bredebot’s help) has successfully maintained a daily blogging cadence for the last several months now. Since late March, as a matter of fact.
Along with nearly-daily cadences on many of Bredemarket’s social channels, this has increased Bredemarket’s SEO and LLM presence.
And it may yield comparable revenue impacts.
Especially from those companies that haven’t blogged in months or years, and are just now beginning to realize how this hurts them.
And how Bredemarket can help.
Talk to me if you want to kick your blogging into high gear and attract prospects. After all, Bredemarket creates content.
There are still a number of hours left in the week, but so far these are the biggies that I wrote (or, in one case, Bredebot wrote).
Establish your presence without your presence. Any time. While living your life.
I’m conducting an experiment in which an AI bot, “Bredebot,” is writing on the Bredemarket blog and on LinkedIn with almost no restrictions.
Don’t do this at home. It’s not a good idea.
This post describes an example in which Bredebot misses a critically important point about Bredemarket’s target audience in the identity/biometric industry.
Earlier today, I asked Bredebot to write a post analyzing a Drew Mabry quote:
“The true competitive advantage isn’t the Al tools themselves but how you use them. Your unique processes for data capture, knowledge management, and building trust are the real ‘moat.’ Al becomes powerful when it’s integrated with your proprietary insights and context, making your approach impossible to replicate.”
Mabry also advocates including a human in the loop: his firm, Fast + Light, always asks at least one human (preferably two) to review all AI-generated content.
In my Bredebot experiment, I rarely edit what Bredebot says. If you know me, it’s very obvious that Bredebot wrote this and I didn’t.
“Building Trust: In the identity and biometrics space, trust isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s paramount. If customers don’t trust you with their most sensitive data, you simply don’t have a business. Your processes for privacy, security, transparency, and ethical AI usage are not just compliance requirements; they are fundamental differentiators. How you communicate these efforts, how you manage data breaches (heaven forbid!), and how you constantly reinforce your commitment to security are all part of this trust-building moat. This is where your wombat customers, usually burrowing away, will emerge to praise (or criticize) your efforts.”
While I certainly agree with the sentiment, and obviously don’t mind the reference to wombats, I would have made one change.
I would have modified Bredebot’s use of the T word. Just because Mabry used it doesn’t mean that Bredebot has to do the same.
Why not? Because the word “trust” is massively overused in the identity/biometric industry. So much so that you can’t tell one company from another.
“Now perhaps some of you would argue that trust is essential to identity verification in the same way that water is essential to an ocean, and that therefore EVERYBODY HAS to use the t-word in their communications.
“Don’t tell that to Black Ink Tech, who uses the trademark ‘Truth Over Trust.’
“And no, they didn’t violate any law by using an unapproved word. Instead, they got attention by standing out from the crowd.”
And identity/biometric firms are the primary hungry people (target audience) for the Bredemarket blog.
So I definitely would have edited that paragraph.
So why didn’t I?
I’m going to dodge that question by asking you one.
Do you need an experienced human to help your identity, biometric, or technology organization product marketing?
Visit this page to set up a free meeting with Bredemarket. I’ll ask some questions to get things moving.
(Imagen 3)
Have you ever used the phrase “sort of unique”? Something is either unique or it isn’t. And International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers fail the uniquness test.
Here’s what a few companies say about the IMEI number on each mobile phone. Emphasis mine.
These and other descriptions of the IMEI prominently use the word “unique.” Not “sort of unique,” but “unique.”
Which means (for non-person entities, just like persons) that if someone can find a SINGLE reliable instance of more than one mobile phone having the same IMEI number, then the claim of uniqueness falls apart completely.
People who claim IMEI uniqueness obviously didn’t read my Bredemarket blog post of April 1, in which I WASN’T fooling.
IMEICheck.net even tells you (at a high level) how to clone an IMEI. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.
“In theory, hackers can clone a phone using its IMEI, but this requires significant effort. They need physical access to the device or SIM card to extract data, typically using specialized tools.
“The cloning process involves copying the IMEI and other credentials necessary to create a functional duplicate of the phone. However, IMEI number security features in modern devices are designed to prevent unauthorized cloning.”
So don’t claim an IMEI is unique when there is evidence to the contrary. As I said in my April post:
“NOTHING provides 100.00000% security. Not even an IMEI number.”
If you offer an identity product, educate your prospects and avoid unsupportable claims. While a few prospects may be swayed by “100%” claims, the smarter ones will appreciate more supportable statements, such as “Our facial recognition algorithm demonstrated a 0.0022 false non-match rate in the mugshot:mugshot NIST FRTE 1:1 laboratory testing.”
When you are truthful in educating your prospects, they will (apologizes in advance for using this overused word) trust you and become more inclined to buy from you.
If you need help in creating content (blog posts, case studies, white papers, proposals, and many more), work with Bredemarket to create the customer-focused content you need. Book a free meeting with me.
By Sunday, my earlier mention of Orlando will make no sense. There will be some other niche conference going on, and the IAI folks will be back at their home agencies, resuming work.
While some blogs are evergreen, many are transitory and only live in the moment.
Bredemarket