New York is going to be even more full of events going on in the next 10 days or so,  some which I plan to attend, to the extent I can attend them.  In fact, things are going on this week as well, including GirlsinTech, which I attended last night at Kush in lower Manhattan.  I’m also going to GoldenNetworking.com’s Twitter Party tonight at Johnny Utah’s. Also -BarCampNYC4 – May 30-31, 2009 happens this weekend and is already sold out (but it’s free) over at the ITP facilities at New York University – I’ll be there at least most of Saturday and maybe some of Sunday, not sure if I’ll speak or not, still thinking about it.

Internet Week officially starts June 1st and I’ll probably drop by the The TechSet Bubbles Up Innovation with PepsiCo early Monday Evening and Ignite NYC 3 .  I’ve also been invited to cover MediaBistro Circus on June 2nd and 3rd, and time permitting, I’ll be at part of the event and the networking afterwards, trying to find the new directions Social Media, Search and Web Analytics is going.   There’s also New York Tech Meetup and Facebook Garage going, not sure how much I’ll be able to cover of all the things going on, again, time and workload permitting.  I’m still trying to decide what combination of sessions I can cover at The Circus that allows me the best overall experience.  We’ll see.  There’s also First Wednesday JUNE which I’ve regularly gone to.  Next Thursday, Diggnation LIVE in NYC at Webster Hall which I planned on attending  – but there’s also an Ultra Light Startup focusing on Twitter occurring at the same time, again, I’ll figure it out.

And, a good friend is dropping by next week, Gary Angel who co-founded Semphonic.com and who I’ll meet with while he’s in town – he’s also founder of XChange Conference that I’ve attended and spoken at twice, in Northern California.

What I’ll be focusing on is what is new and emerging and meaningful in 2009 and 2010 – and that’s what I’ll write about.  In a way, I would not mind covering some of this for Entrepreneur.com, where I also write, but that’s not focus of my column which is Web Analytics, solely.

I wanted to write a much longer post about this than I am going to tonight, since it’s late – but I’ve noticed that many of my posts, recently, have been retweeted 30-40 times per post – sometimes by the same people, but oftern by different people.

For example, my post on SEO, Web Analytics and Social Media have Merged was retweeted by my followers 35 times over the period of a day and each individual can reach others in their own networks, so a lot more than the 35 people who initially viewed my article from a retweet may have ultimately seen my post.

Because tinyurls are used a lot of the referral traffic might not show up in Analytics, though I believe there are other ways to track information.

Thinking about Social Media’s value while hearing Susan Boyle’s video had been viewed 33 Million Times in the last month, or so, but producers and advertisers connected with the show she appeared in, in the UK, hadn’t made any money on all those views (as reported by the NY Post via NY1 Cable channel). I’m on my iPhone as I pen these thoughts and can’t put in my links here due to the iPhone’s current limitations.

I’m going to argue about the accuracy and narrowness of that viewpoint; I don’t think the value of Social Media Outreach is connected to ROI; I think Social Media’s value is much more intimately connected with a potential customer’s future propensity to purchase or interact than any “direct” monetization of a campaign.

That would make Social Media ROI kinda difficult to measure. Search Marketing was much easier to measure because it is similar to direct marketing, works with an identified need or pain point, and is fairly easy to track by site Analytics along with the information provided directly from the search engines (now, for Paid AND Organic).

Social Media doesn’t have a direct response connection, but it has several indirect connections.

I believe the reason we can’t easily determine the effectiveness of Social Media … We’re asking the wrong questions.