Yesterday, Walt Mossberg reviewed a new digital book reader from a company called Irex.

The full product name? The Irex DR800SG.

That’s right. Four letters separated by three numbers, none of which have any meaning to consumers. That should be easy to remember.

The first Linksys router listed on Amazon is called Linksys by Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router (Compatible with Linux).

If you want an HP laptop, you may be interested in the HP Pavilion DM3-1140US 13.3-Inch Laptop (Silver).

Don’t like HP? How about Sony? Maybe you’d consider the Sony VAIO VGN-NW240F/S 15.5-Inch Silver Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)?

Or the Toshiba Satellite L505-GS5037 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black).

Not in the market for a laptop? How about a TV?

There’s the Westinghouse PT-16H610S 15.6-Inch Portable Dual-Hinged LCD HDTV. And the Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-L26X1 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV.

And from one of my favorite high-definition TV makers: the VIZIO VA19LHDTV10T 19-Inch ECO 720p LCD HDTV. Because every model number should feature the HDTV acronym twice!

Good lord.

How can such excellent products have such terrible names? Because the engineers name the devices, and nobody in marketing, sales or public relations stands in their way. These model numbers only mean something to a few people inside the companies that create them — and yet, manufacturers force them upon the entirety of the consumer public.

The problem is these ungainly product names will single-handedly keep these products from catching fire and becoming popular with a critical mass of mainstream consumers. Because nobody will be able to remember the name!

You can’t develop consumer evangelists with a long, impossible-to-remember product name. Such names are evangelist repellents.

Let’s look at the product names of devices that do (or once did) enjoy consumer evangelists:

• The iPod
• The Mac
• The iPhone
• TiVo
• Palm
• The Walkman

“Those are just the brands,” I can hear you saying. “What about the names of the specific model numbers?”

OK:

• The iPod Nano
• The iPod 8 GB
• The iPhone 3GS
• The Palm III, The Palm Treo
• TiVo HD
• The 15-inch Macbook Pro

Do you feel me? The names of the specific models are snazzy, catchy, sticky, while defining the product’s details and differentiating it from other models. With TiVo, I understand that this TiVo is for HD video, and can assume that that TiVo is for SD (standard definition).

This iPod is the Nano, so it’s probably small. That iPod is bigger.

This Macbook Pro is the 15-inch model. That other Macbook is a different size.

Sure, these companies all assign more technical model numbers to their products — but nobody uses them publicly, facing consumers. For example, the model number for the 13-inch Macbook Pro is MB990LL/A. But try finding it on Apple’s Web site. I dare you. You won’t be able to. I had to dig around Google for a while before tracking it down. But you can bet it’s used all over the place internally at Apple. But in public, it’s all but locked down.

Model numbers are so easy to get right (just think simple), yet the vast majority of manufacturers get it wrong. And sadly, it’s a rate determining step: if your model number is crazy long, it’s instantly unmemorable. And to some consumers, it’s a downright turnoff. (“How can these people help me if their device’s model number is three lines long?”)

It’s too important, and there’s no excuse for the current state of high-tech model names. Make it simple. Get it right.

You may have powerful platforms, but even beautifully produced primetime television commercials won’t help you if your language isn’t excellent.

Above all, the language you use to talk about your products must simple. Then, it must be interesting. Captivating even. Memorable helps. It must get across the huge value of your products immediately. Every phrase, every sentence, should be powerful.

The best language isn’t yours. It’s your consumers’. Use their words. Tell the best consumer stories to consumers, using consumers’ language.

I’ve been writing in this blog six days per week since January. I didn’t write this much when I was a syndicated Chicago Tribune technology columnist. I didn’t write this much while working on my book, Going Digital.

I can tell you, though, coming here to work so regularly has been wildly valuable. Writing so much has:

• Forced me to think creatively, daily.
• Created a systematized way to create new ideas and intellectual property.
• Allowed me to analyze products, companies and strategies from new points of view.
• Generated new credibility with clients and prospective clients.
• Got me thinking about working on a book again.
• Connected me with people I would not have been in touch with.
• As a formed big media writer, it has allowed me to learn about how much more interesting this small media is.
• Paid off unexpectedly in Google search rankings. Wordpress is brilliant at this.

This is also my first “off-topic” post, that doesn’t have to do with creating consumer electronics evangelists, which some people, like my IBM Lotus blogger friend, Ed Brill, will be particularly happy about.

I can picture my Tribune editors screaming about staying focused.

So, allow me to circle around to bring it together: what if consumer electronics makers — executives, marketers, PR professionals — spent a few days a week writing about your insights. About what works and doesn’t work. About your perceptions or your company, your products, your market, your strategy, your techniques, your competition. Most of this writing would not be public in nature. It could be on your intranet, or your notebook in the drawer.

How valuable would it be if you had to spend 15 minutes per day thinking creatively, about ideas?

Even if you did it twice a week, in regards to new ideas and intellectual property, you would launch yourself ahead of nearly everyone.

Panasonic’s first 3DTV hits the market this week in Best Buy stores.

LG 3DTVs are coming in May. Vizio models will start selling in August.

Sony is set to debut its first 3D television in June. It’s a 46-inch display that will retail for $3,875.

Bluray players capable of playing three-dimensions are coming. Sony’s PlayStation 3 can support 3D Bluray discs now.

Three-dimensional video games are coming.

Discovery Channel is working on a 3D TV network. So is ESPN.

Starting to feel pretty close to critical mass, no?

Don’t mistake the fledgling, aspirational three-dimensional attempt at new TV revenues with the mainstream adoption of HDTVs. People will not jump on 3DTVs with nearly the same energy. Mainstream penetration is only possible:

• When prices fall. I can get a good 46-inch HDTV with a crystal clear picture today for $700. The 3D model costs five times that.
• When content skyrockets. Nightly programming on non-premium channels will be necessary.
• When people feel they are missing something by not having a 3DTV, they will buy one. When the SuperBowl is broadcast in 3D, with players flying around your living room, and ball zipping past your nose. When Gweneth Paltrow walks past your coffee table on the 3D Oscars telecast. That’s when people will adopt 3DTVs en masse.

High definition TVs only caught on when all of the above occurred. They became affordable. Our local network channels started broadcasting in HD — for free, over-the-air. And the tipping point came when our friends and neighbors started getting HDTVs. The instant you saw an HD picture, you knew what you were missing.

There’s no guarantee that 3DTVs will ever go mainstream. But the gathering manufacturer support and development is a very strong sign that at the very least, consumers will get to make a choice on whether 3DTVs hit the big time.

Most new technologies never make it this far.

In his post today, Seth Godin talks about doing just five minutes of exceptional work per today. It’s enough, he says, because that would be five minutes more than just about anyone else.

In consumer electronics, this translates thusly:

• Call 10 consumers and ask them how they use your products today. Talk to each person for five minutes. That’s less than one hour total. Imagine the invaluable marketing insights you’d generate. Do this, and it would be 10 more consumer conversations than just about any other manufacturer has in our business will have today.
• Ask five people what words they use to describe your products. That would be five more than anyone else.
• Try to think about your products like grandmothers and grandfathers might. How would they perceive your devices, and the way you’re talking about them? Do that, and you’d probably be the only one doing that today.
• Come up with five single words — just five — that describe the lifestyle value of your products. (Helpful? Energizing? Simple? Intuitive? Freeing?) Do this, and you’ll have five more words than just about anyone else.
• Write a grammatically sound, interesting press release. You’d be the only tech company THIS WEEK to do so. Trust me.

I can write 50 more of these. Maybe one day soon I will. But for now, all of the above activities can be done quickly, and each will generate a significant competitive advantage for you. Because in consumer electronics, manufacturers rarely talk to consumers unless it’s about technical specifications.

Now imagine if you executed one consumer research activity every day. Just one. Time spent: no more than 15 minutes daily, on average. Resulting value and competitive advantage? Easily priceless.

What’s stopping you?

Here’s what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to say in January about consumers’ changing views on Internet privacy:

“When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was ‘why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’

“And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

Problem is, the social norm is not driven by society. It is driven by inventive manufacturers with tremendous vision who make terrific products, in this case Facebook.

Before TiVo, recording television shows and movies to a hard drive that could be viewed at any time (no tapes!) was not the social norm.

Before Palm, keeping a calendar and task list on a handheld device was not the social norm.

Before Apple, listening to digital music files on tiny players was not the social norm.

Before Ford, driving around on four wheels was not the social norm.

Zuckerberg’s quote was in reference to Facebook’s loosening up of privacy terms. People don’t mind sharing their private lives publicly because it’s the new social norm, he said. Yeah, and Facebook made it that way. Without Facebook, that social norm doesn’t exist.

That’s a hell of a responsibility. And today’s top consumer electronics makers like Apple, Microsoft, Google and, yes, Facebook must be aware of their massive influence on society — and tread carefully and respectfully.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Sony is developing a number of products because it feels threatened by Apple’s increasingly strong position in the handheld device space. Sony is working on:

• A smart phone that plays and downloads games.
• A netbook-like electronic book reader.
• An online media marketplace that sells songs and videos.

All of the above should sound very iFamiliar (read: iPhone-iPad-iTunes).

Problem is, in consumer electronics, this desperate approach rarely works. Sony is attempting to create new technology from a position of defense, a position of scrambling to catch up, a position of self-preservation. Further, its trying to build on a weakness: According to the same WSJ article, Sony Ericsson saw its global shipments fall 41 percent in 2009. Sony also recently lowered its outlook for its PlayStation Portable device. I believe the biggest reason Sony is struggling in those mobile categories is because Apple is hammering them with the iPhone.

Which is why it makes absolutely no sense to invest money, manpower and attention to create new products which will also get hammered by Apple.

In today’s mobile device space, Apple is dealing from a position of strength — it has not only terrific products but consumer evangelists — while Sony deals from a position of weakness.

Instead, Sony should be focusing on areas of potential strength: the PlayStation 3 console, digital cameras and camcorders, and its Bravia LCD television. In those three categories it’s possible to argue:

• Sony was once THE leader in each category, but has recently fallen in with a “pack” of leaders.
• Consumers acknowledge and accept Sony as a leader in those areas.
• Given a relatively happy consumer base in each category, it’s still possible for Sony to regain the leadership position in each.

Every manufacturer has areas of weakness and areas of strenghts. It is always easier to build on strengths than on weaknesses. But Sony is making matters even more difficult for itself by trying to build on weaknesses desperately.

If you’re selling anything tech-related to consumers, create messaging intended to excite grandmothers: if you can convince them that your product is valuable, you can convince anyone.

Apple hasn’t had a great PR week. Yesterday, it announced a lawsuit against a competing smart phone maker for patent infringement. The day before, Apple said it discovered 11 minors working in at suppliers’ facilities.

The first piece of news is an expected part of being in he technology invention business. The second detail falls somewhere between shocking and horrific.

For most companies.

But not really for Apple.

Because Apple is the only consumer electronics company that has evangelists.

There are Apple evangelists in the media, so the bad news is presented a little more gently. (If you’ve never been to a consumer electronics trade show press room, 90 percent of the working media are doing their jobs on a Mac.)

There are Apple evangelists among consumers. So the terrible news is instinctively chalked up to an innocent mistake. An oversight.

It probably is. But diabolical assumptions come toward Apple at much lower rate than other manufacturers.

It’s a hell of a competitive advantage. The fallout for Sony or Samsung or Panasonic (all competent but “evangelistless”) would have been tremendously more negative.

Create evangelists, and nourish them like Apple. Then enjoy the results.

With advice, as with consumer electronics, the simplest approach is usually the most effective one. Which is why I’m launching the Market Share In a Sentence series — powerful consumer electronics growth techniques that are presented as simply as possible: in a single sentence.

In your product engineering, marketing, messaging, manuals, and public relations, simple beats everything (including fascinating) every time — so always aim for simple.