Remember the days of Microsoft Word Version 3.11? Aldus PageMaker 4.2? There used to be no way to get a feel for if your backup utility was new or if a spreadsheet package was old. Then Adobe released Illustrator ’88 (at least they’re the first one I remember doing it) and soon after Microsoft went to ‘model years’ just like the auto industry. For better or worse, at least we know how old Quicken 2004 is and Quicken 2008 is the latest and the greatest.

I think it’s time to adopt this standard for marketing. The Web 1.0, Marketing 2.0, and Analytics 3.0 debate has become a meaningless parody and just about everyone knows it. But the concept is important – there are old and new techniques, technologies, and philosophies. The current debates confuse rather than help marketers and related decision makers.

Consumers and practitioners need a way to benchmark and communicate the ‘state-of-the-art’ and where they stand relative to it.

Are you optimizing your site with the SEO techniques of 2004 or 2007? Do you get the full value (and pay the full price) of Web Analytics 2007 or are you satisfied (or forced) to hobble along with Web Analytics 2001? Is your paid search program managed like it’s nearly 2008, or is all that money and opportunity riding on 5-year-old ideas and technology?

What if there were a simple chart people could use to gauge their own sophistication and progress? Practices and capabilities which were practical and prevalent (but not bleeding edge) at any given time would be included.

Consider this way-to-simplistic example:

If online marketing was a software package, what features and benefits would we say were added this year? Beyond the broad ideas of Conversations and Calculations, what specific efforts are driving success this year and likely to as we move into 2008?

I’ll explore each of these in detail in posts next week.

In the meantime, what characteristics do you think define SEO, SEM, Analytics, or any other online marketing disciplines as ‘2007-vintage’? What’s going to be required in 2008?