How can it be a great opportunity, if the pot is divided among thousands of business publishers, ranging from upstart blogs to established news brands, as well as Google, Facebook, and other nontraditional outlets where readers congregate and seek information?

One of the main problems is that there is an overwhelming amount of available content/inventory. More is coming online all the time. This is great for readers and advertisers, but terrible for publishers. I read yesterday that a well-known NY-based business blog was getting $10 CPMs. If that blog hopes to use advertising to cover costs, it will require millions of impressions every month — a difficult proposition, considering the huge number of choices available to readers.