Product meaning is what a product signifies to a specific audience in a specific context. It is not the same as what the product does (that's function), what you say about the product (that's messaging), or how the product looks (that's design); though all of these contribute to it. Meaning is the total interpretation a person constructs when they encounter the product, based on every signal available to them. Meaning is not fixed. It shifts depending on who is encountering the product, in what context, and what signals have reached them before that encounter. The same product means something different to a venture-backed founder than to a freelancer; to someone who heard about it from a consultant they respect than to someone who saw a discount ad on Instagram. Meaning is also not created in isolation. It is always built via difference; a product means something because of how it compares, contrasts, and relates to everything else in the user's mental landscape. Slack meant "email killer, no chat" not just because of what Slack said, but because HipChat meant "team chat" and email already meant slow and cluttered. Slack's meaning was defined as much by what it was not as by what it was. Engineering product meaning is the central task of Symbolic Engineering.