Thanks for your question. Yes, the random words in this entry that are in green are actually little in-line advert hotspots through Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT system. See for yourself; move your mouse to have the cursor hover over one of the green words. Neat, eh?
This is all done dynamically and is a very low-key method of adding some additional advertising on a page without taking away from the readability of the page or having the ads sit there staring at you. Personally, I like it. :-)
The way that I have figured out how to exclude blocks of text from their processing is to use the "nointelliTXT" id in a span block. It'd look like this:
<span id="nointelliTXT">
text to exclude from processing
</span>
Indeed, that very block above with the sample code uses that exact notational convention to ensure that one of the words in the example isn't highlighted with an advert.
In terms of the program itself, I've only been running it for about two weeks as I write this, so it's a bit soon to tell, but I'm really pleased with the ease of use, the accuracy of their ad pinpointing and the financial upside of my relationship with them. I won't share my exact figures, but my projected annual revenue is in the xx,xxx range. Sweet!
Now, before you pop over to their site to sign up, please note that you need at least 500,000 page views/month to qualify and that they do have a referral program too: if you allow me to refer you to the IntelliTXT program, I'll share that referral commission by sending you a free signed copy of my book Growing Your Business with Google!
In any case, what do you think of the system, dear reader? Are the green words in my articles heinous and a huge distraction from the value and utility of the content? Would you rather have the adverts be more overt? Or is it easy to ignore or check out, as the whim hits you?
I will say that in the two weeks I have been running the system I have only had one reader complain about it, saying that it was akin to keyword spam on my site. I understand her perspective, but respond by observing that someone we all have to pay the mortgage and feed the kids, and generating some additional revenue from such a subtle advertising system is a terrific boon in my eyes...
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The only downside of a <span id="nointelliTXT"> is that you can really only have one of these blocks per page, as id's should be unique in any given HTML page. (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.5.2 )
I don't have access to any IntelliTXT documentation, but I wonder if a <span class="nointelliTXT"> would work -- it would certainly seem to make more sense in this context.
Regards,
NeilS