Darren Rowse

Co-founder of b5media, Problogger.net and author of ProBlogger the Book

“Never Give Up” – in my industry one of the biggest reasons blogs fail is that blogge[r]s don’t see instantaneous results and give up before they even come close to reaching their potential. I’d suspect that this rings true for many businesses. One of the keys to building a successful business is consistent effort over the long haul.

John Chow

Writes for John Chow dot Com

The best business advice I ever got came from the late founder and CEO of Canadian Forest Products.

“If you can make something for a little less than your competition, and sell it for a little more, then you’re doing OK.”

Dean Hunt

Social Media Master, deanhunt.com

“Don’t let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you’re crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you’re lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you’re greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn’t understand.”

Garry Conn

Successful blogger at garryconn.com

The best advice I got was when my father insisted that I get into computers at an early age. He had said with the birth of the Internet would come an abundance of money that would be almost free for the picking as if it were growing on trees.

Yan Susanto

freelance consultant and full-time blogger at thoushallblog.com

The best advice I had is, “Choose to blog about something that you can see yourself still blogging about in 3-4 years – it takes that long to build a successful blog.”

It takes lots of dedication, patience and most importantly, passion to run a successful blog. Without the passion, how could anyone be able to survive in 3-4 years? It’s no secret then that the blogosphere is littered with dead blogs. I hope I could look back in 4 years time and reflect on that one advise I was given early in my blogging career.

Donny Gamble

The Man who runs Linkersblog

I would say that the best advice I have ever received was to never give up on anything that you start. My dad always taught me at a young age that if you quit something that you have started, then you did what people wanted you to do and that is quit. I think society is designed for people to fail at things and not accomplish the things that they want to accomplish. The economy is set up where only a few people excel while the other people struggle to succeed.

Thomas Sinfield

Author of the Stand Out Blogger, standoutblogger.com

I would have to say that the best advice I have ever received is:”To follow your passions”

I have found that if you chose a business venture in an area that you are not passionate about and cannot find anything in the business that makes you passionate – you will lose interest and give up very early on in the venture.

Gyutae Park

Internet Entrepreneur and Professional SEO at Winning the Web

The best advice that I received was that “action brings clarity”. A lot of times people procrastinate and wait until they’re smart enough or are prepared enough to take action (e.g. starting their own business). Unfortunately, they never get started with that mentality.

It’s important to take the plunge even if you don’t know anything. Experience is usually the best teacher and taking action will open up new doors of opportunity.

Jim Karter

blogs at jimkarter.com

My best advice is what I got from my father. He used to say “Son, always remember to keep your one leg firm on the ground while you try to reach for the stars.” Means, whatever you try to do in your life, always keep your fundamentals strong.

Jonathan Volk

Super Affiliate and blogger at jonathanvolk.com

The best advice I ever got was to ask penetrating questions.

Syed Balkhi

Successful blogger at balkhis.com

The best advice I have ever got was: You have to earn their trust, before you can make a successful sale.

Caroline Middlebrook

Successful blogger at caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/

Never give up!

Glen Allsopp

Successful blogger at Viper Chill Plugin ID

The best advice I’ve ever received and try to pass on as often as possible is that “you are enough”. You are enough to become a millionaire, you are enough to have an attractive partner, you are enough to fulfill your dreams. You don’t need to keep adding things to yourself, you need to take away the things that hold you back such as doubt, fear and limiting beliefs. You are enough to do [insert anything here].

What’s more impressive is the cash behind this cow. Back in January, Entrecard was earning a little over $2.50 a day times 8 ad spots using Project Wonderful. This set up earned a little over $600 a month based on Business Leaps’ estimates. Now, at the end of this year, Langdon deposits a conservative estimate of $250 a month times 8 ad spots generating $2,000 a month — an increase of 233%.

However, that doesn’t include the income from users buying Entrecredits or other advertising deals. In the beginning of the year, Entrecard had one stream of income, Project Wonderful; now, Langdon has moved from Project Wonderful towards private ad sales with other revenue streams including EntreCredit sales and what appears to be affiliate income. To date, Langdon failed to return comments regarding any revenue assumptions.

However, before there was Entrecard, there was College. Langdon attended the University of Connecticut for three years. Langdon dropped out his senior year in part because of the success of a different successful venture. Million Dollar Wiki was founded by Langdon and grossed nearly $100,000, after which, Langdon saved 30% for taxes and paid off his school loans of $30,000. The rest, $40,000 or so, was used to start Entrecard, and according to past interviews, every dime of that $40,000 has been spent on Entrecard. Even after spending every dime on Entrecard, Langdon found himself selling the wiki to further expand his next venture Entrecard according to past interviews.

Entrecard, an idea born from BlogRush describes the creation process behind Entrecard saying, “It was shortly after Blogrush launched. I watched in awe as the Alexa ranking for blogrush on launch day hit something like 400. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was using it. And then I watched as everyone removed it, and it failed as quickly as it had launched. Then I analyzed how it succeeded.”

Even if Langdon can’t be credited with a completely unique idea, he can be credited with a massively successful idea. And building on this success Langdon hopes the future of Entrecard becoming a new media powerhouse. The road to a media powerhouse does require additional funding, and this founder has been in talks with several angel investors and venture capital firms. Langdon also failed to return comments on the details of talks with venture capital firms. And, to date, a deal has not been officially drafted according to the Entrecard blog. However, according to sources, a venture capital firm was initially investing $700,000 with future funding of $1 Million. Yet, these claims have not been verified by Business Leaps.

Another goal Langdon finds himself reaching towards is 50 million daily widget impressions on high-quality blogs. That goal depends largely on his what some call “erratic decisions.” Decisions, more recently, that have cost him some high-quality blogs he aims to retain. The near instant decision to ban a member came after a Twitter post named Graham Langdon an “asshat” from the blogger Turnip at TurnipofPower.com. Entrecard moved quickly to ban Turnip citing a zero tolerance policy towards “intentional uses of profanity or harassment or harassment directed at other Entrecarders or Entrecard Staff.”

However, one look at Graham Langdon’s personal blog, grahamlangdon.com. Readers might notice a blog category Langdon has named “buying shit.” And as far as harassment, other users are quick to note harassment might be too strong a word in describing the recent Entrecard controversy.

Controversy aside, Langdon exposes his humanity. Shortly after the banning incident, Langdon describes his shortcomings in a blog post, “I’m still a human. No, I have not matured as far as I possibly can yet. I know that I still have a lot of personal growth to achieve. And yes, sometimes I do act emotionally, [erratically], and in poor form. I am human.”  Yet, for a 23 year old, Langdon has made far more intelligent decisions than not.

What’s the motivation behind this 23 year-old entrepreneur? Langdon wouldn’t say specifically, but based on his last venture many would have to conclude money.  When asked about the inspiration behind the Million Dollar Wiki, Langdon described his need,  “to make money that didn’t require any upfront investment.” In  a way Langdon wanted the cash without an investment.

The underlying motivation behind Entrecard could be the same as the past venture. Money. Entrecard was listed on the Site Point auction site with a minimum bid of $100,000. However, to date Entrecard has had no serious bids, did not meet Langdon’s reserve price, and has been taken off the market. According to sources, the reason posted on Site Point was the venture capital firm pulled out of Entrecard.  Langdon explained on the auction, the funding consisted of “700k seed investment and a 2-5m follow on Series A investment in 6 months,” yet the “deal fell through in the 11th hour, right before the terms sheet, because they lost faith in my ability to execute,” said Langdon.

Regardless of the motive, regardless of the controversy surrounding Entrecard’s decisions, regardless of the possible decline of Entrecard in the future, Entrecard has still been an incredible story of innovation, bootstrapping, and viral marketing. All these factors are key to a successful entrepreneur, for this reason Graham Langdon has proved better than many others his creative innovation, his bootstrapping success, and his ability to spread the word about Entrecard earns him the name Entrepreneur of the Year.

I’ve been banned from Digg. I used to love Digg, but I’ve done something to Digg it didn’t like. I’m now an “invalid user.” Digg you’ve dugg your own grave; you’re no longer run by users, but robotic editors. And It’s editing content and denying the existence of an editor that killed you. It’s also the ease of dirty digging, like hurting your competition’s website that kill you.

Many of you have heard of the Digg Auto bury, it’s the editorial-robot killing hundreds of great stories every month. It’s the robot that kills most of forevergeek.com, johnchow.com, copyblogger.com’s stories — and now it killed my user name.

But don’t ask digg about autobury, it still believes “Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content.”

Yet, Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, explains the autobury feature of digg, “When a single URL hits a threshold of reports, our standard procedure is to block that URL from submission.” If automatically blocking a URL from digg isn’t editing content, what is?

Stefan Juhl researched the idea of internal edited and found the “last referrer before the [bury] was crawl3.digg.internal.” It’s an internal autobury indeed.

“Mostly, landing on the Digg front page a couple times a month resulted only in a server-shaking stampede of worthless traffic. But mixed in with the basement-dwelling little boys who momentarily refrained from Playstationing with their Wiis long enough to tell me I sucked, I picked up new subscribers,” said Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com.

And now you can get even more subscribers and visitors by digging your competitor’s graves. It’s extremely easy to kill your competing site on digg, just follow these steps to get his or her domain on autobury. It’s called “dirty digging.”

How to Digg Your Competitors Grave

1. Submit and Title Posts for Your Competition. And make the title standout, something like “Check this Post Out on Domain.com” or “This Was ReAlly Cool.”

2. Create a Free Email Account Using The Domain Name. Go to Yahoo or Hotmail and create an email (yourcompetition@hotmail.com). Now have the domain’s RSS feed and digg every new post, again using spam titles. Keep submitting only the domain’s posts until you get the domain banned.

3. Keep Creating New Accounts. Go to the library one day and create 15 or more new email accounts and digg accounts. Then submit posts only from your competitors domain.

4. Now Bury Each Post. Use an account that hasn’t submitted the stories and bury each one. And if you want a ban even faster, get 15 or more of your friends on digg to bury the stories.

5. Contact the Power Users. Again using a fake email, contact some power-users and ask them if they’re interested in getting paid to digg a list of stories. Be sure to list each post from your competitor’s site.

Along with how easy it is to use digg to do your dirty work, digg and all social media have reverted the trend back to individual blogs — where the blogger has complete control and can’t be banned. It’s this trend back to blogging that came from digg’s hypocrisy that killed it. Saying the users control the content seen on digg, then creating an autobury is hypocrisy.

As Lee Odden, a fellow blogger at toprankblog.com, explains, “The issue for me is when people try to submit a story they want to share with the digg community and get an error message ‘This domain name is banned from submissions’ it sends an inaccurate message. My complaint is not about being off of digg, its about someone else making that decision arbitrarily and digg support acting very much like DMOZ. And we all know where DMOZ ended up.”