You've probably received a bunch of emails in the last couple of days about the latest product that claims it will skyrocket your internet business. You know the one I'm talking about - _______________________.

Yes, that was supposed to be blank. Because no matter when you read this post, you can probably name one that is being launched right now.

As I write this, the hype is starting to build for Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula version 2, but that will be over and done with and replaced with something else before long.

Now, I'm not going to debate the effectiveness of these launches. What I want to discuss is how I choose which ones I buy and which ones I don't.

First of all, the person marketing the product will usually decide whether I read further or just delete the email and forget about it.

There are several people who I trust to deliver a quality product that delivers on what it says it will. Jeff Walker is one of those people, incidentally. I bought the first version of Product Launch Formula and was very happy with it.

But there are far more who I have had bad experiences with in the past and I wouldn't buy another product no matter how good it sounded.

Secondly - and this is really the key to the whole thing - I look at how I can use the product in my business.

Most of these launches give away enough information during the launch to get a pretty good idea of what it will teach you. Just not enough to be able to fully implement it.

If you're an absolute newbie, it's going to be harder to make this decision, but at that point you really shouldn't be falling all over every product that is released anyway.

If you've got an internet business of some sort already, you should be able to see how you would apply the information you learn, or you shouldn't be buying it.

If you focus on Adsense for your monetization, why would you buy a product about creating your own products? Unless you want to move in that direction, in which case you can see how you would apply the information.

If you rely on natural search traffic you probably have no use for a pay-per-click related product, unless again that's a direction you want to go.

Back when I used to buy almost every product that was launched after reading the sales letters and getting dollar signs in my eyes, I rarely implemented everything (in fact, often nothing). It took me a lot longer than it should have (and a lot more money) to realize I was wasting my number one resource - time.

The time spent reading things that I never implemented anyway would have been much better used for building my business.

It's really all about your mindset. If you're thinking in terms of making a quick buck with the latest trick or technique, you're going to be easily won over by the sales letters on these products.

After all, a lot of those sales letters are written by some pretty heavy hitters in the copywriting business. They know what they're doing, and they know exactly how to convince you to buy.

But if you're thinking in terms of building a long-term business, it changes your focus and lets you step back and really look at whether or not the product fits your model.

The unfortunate thing for most people (that's pretty much everyone except the people selling the products) is that the vast majority of people who are in the target market aren't really building an internet business. They might think they are, but they're really just chasing money, which never works long-term.