This might not be a ‘positive’ message, but it has to be said: there are a lot of ‘bottom feeders’ in the Internet marketing arena and you’ll benefit from knowing how to spot – and AVOID – them.

Having built, run and monetized many, many niche websites over the years… having reported on Internet marketing news… and having promoted numerous Internet marketing how-to products, I’ve concluded that the ‘how-to’ Internet marketing industry is rife with three main types of bottom feeder you’ll want to avoid:

Ed Dale’s Melbourne Challenge Conference will take place on February 25, 26 and 27, 2011 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Melbourne, Australia. Aimed at beginning-to-advanced Internet marketers, conference organiser Ed Dale says the event will include presentations from top-notch speakers including SEO expert, Leslie Rohde, super-affiliate Lynn Terry, and copywriting expert and NLP master, Harlan Kilstein. The event is a must-attend for Australian based Internet marketers (normally starved of quality Internet marketing events) and highly recommended for overseas visitors. Just be sure to bring swimwear and sunscreen to get the most out of gorgeous Melbourne in summer! Go here for all the details including how to get tickets.

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LAUNCH is a two-day event taking place on February 23-24, 2011 at the San Francisco Design Center. Organised by Jason Calacanis with the support of Google and Sequoia Capital, LAUNCH will showcase both new startup technology companies and new products from more established technology companies. Startups can apply to be among the companies to present at LAUNCH here. Alternatively, LAUNCH promises to be a terrific networking event for startups, venture capitalists, angel investors and technology companies in general. For more information about the event, including how to get tickets, visit LAUNCH.

Internet Marketing Events Calendar »

This week’s ‘I Love Internet Marketing’ podcast features an exclusive audio interview with The Challenge founder and 30DC, Inc. CEO, Ed Dale.

Ed Dale is one of the true thought leaders of Internet marketing. Five years ago Ed began the free Internet marketing training program The Challenge (then known as the 30 Day Challenge) which has since enlisted over 150,000 participants. Back then, Ed also started buying and selling web businesses… years before it was trendy.

Not all ideas are good ideas. Before you risk a lot of time, energy, money or other resources on a new idea, you want to make sure it justifies your investment.

But you also want to avoid prematurely dismissing an idea that could turn out to be good. You want to give it a chance to fly before you start shooting at it, looking for weaknesses.

Want to create the ‘Facebook’ of your niche? If so, according to Gina Bianchini, your success in creating a profitable social network will depend on the extent to which it meets seven key design principles.

Gina should know. As the founder of Ning – a platform for creating niche social networks – she’s seen people and companies build literally thousands of social networks. Right now, Ning has around 70,000 paying customers and draws more than 80 million unique visitors per month across its sites.

Success and failure are part and parcel of building a business. You win some, you lose some.

Since, as an entrepreneur, you’re inherently forging a new path through unknown territory, it’s inevitable that you’ll sometimes make decisions that lead you further towards your goal… and others that lead to dead-ends. So too, it’s your ability to quickly turn around, try another way, and keep persisting until you reach your goal that will determine whether or not you succeed.

In other words, the better able you are to deal with failure – to learn from your mistakes and make better decisions – the better your chances of actually succeeding.

But dealing with failure isn’t always easy… so how should you do it?

Today we profile Andrew Follett and the website optimization service he co-founded, Concept Feedback.

Q: What is your background (e.g. previous businesses or career) and why did you decide to start an Internet company?

A: Before starting Concept Feedback, I worked as a marketing director at a small business in the environmental services industry. I was in charge of managing multiple websites and online marketing campaigns.

Q: What is Concept Feedback, when did it start, and what led you to create it?

A: Concept Feedback offers quick, actionable website feedback from a hand-selected panel of experts in design, usability and strategy. Evaluations are completed in 48 hours or less using our written and visual feedback tools, which make it easy to organize and prioritize recommendations.

It’s pretty rare for a digital clock to go too fast or too slow, as you might expect with a mechanical clock. If, however, a digital clock speeds up or slows down, it’s often due a malfunctioning frequency receiver. Since digital clocks are set to a 60 hertz frequency, any deviation from that will cause them to gain or lose time.

But that wasn’t why MY digital clock ran too fast. It turned out that something else was to blame. What was it… and why mention it on an Internet marketing blog?

I tend to get fired up by ‘tough love’. Don’t tell me that life is easy and all I need to do is wish for things to happen… tell me that life is TOUGH and that if I want to achieve anything of substance I’ve got to crawl through mud – not skip across flower beds – to get it.

Do I assume things will be difficult… and thereby get caught in a self-fulfilling philosophy, where things end up being more difficult than they need to be?