Very good point, but I'm not sure there is a valid solution for this, in part because intent generating sites are often only good at generating intent if they'r

Very good point, but I'm not sure there is a valid solution for this, in part because intent generating sites are often only good at generating intent if they're seen as being impartial. If the blog post you're reading exposes that they'll make a profit if you buy the widget they're talking about, you're much less likely to trust that blog post. So the intent generation and intent harvesting may need to remain separate. This does raise the question - how can intent generation be rewarded? Well, there are several answers to that. Intent generation is a side-effect of being someone whose opinion is paid attention to (whether for the span of a single blog post, or as a regular source of information and insight). There are many ways to derive profit from being someone people pay attention to regularly, other than direct affiliate marketing of the products you're talking about, so I'm not sure the problem is as critical as this blog post is making it out. Certainly, as things are, only prolific, popular bloggers can make a living from blogging - but is it really reasonable to expect occasional or occasionally good bloggers to make a living from it? I'm not so sure. In short, I'm not so sure that this is a problem that needs to be fixed. For ways to make money from your blog, I'd recommend Steve Pavlina's excellent post on the topic: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-f...