Yes, some blogs are profitable - very profitable

"... TechCrunch illustrates the new blogging math. It sells sponsorships that allow advertisers to display on the home page at $10,000 per month. It also uses Federated Media to sell display ads, keeping 60 percent of the revenue ,,,"

From a hacker and software company perspective there is a real difference between writing about software or technology to make money and blogging to make money. The biggest difference is with software once the software is written, thats it. It just keeps chugging along. Sure there might be bugs or additions but you can stop work on it for periods of time and do other things. So it makes more sense to write software than just blogging or blogging about it. But can you also make money writing about technology and software as well?

Blogging and other types of writing, (unless you are JK Rowlings) require you have to stay on the writing treadmill whether you like it or not. Churning out articles at regular intervals. If you stop your traffic stops. I'm sure this is the case for sites like Techcrunch.

    "... writing does not scale very well ..." 

Thats the problem with writing, it does not scale well. Thats probably the reason hacks and stringers have been traditionally paid by the word. It's one of the only ways to reduce costs. And the only way to increase words is more writers. The other confusing bit in the article is the lack of specifics on how money is made. Do you make money "by" blogging or make money "off" blogging? Most already intuitively understand this distinction but not the reasons why. Here is a list of things that you should also think about. So it makes more sense to make money "off" blogging because:

- "People come back to places that send them away. Memorize that one." Dave Winer [0]

- use blogging to "Sell software, services"

- use blogging to "Brand yourself, get leverage for other things"

- use blogging to "Do good"

The list goes on and I've added the references to Dave Winer who seems to have thought about this particular subject the deepest. [1]

    "I wanted people to look past the 
     subject of making money with blogs, 
     to making money because of blogs." [2]

Understanding the key differences means you can get on with the task writing software and concentrate instead on being paid indirectly instead of merely "blogging for money". [3]

[0] http://www.scripting.com/2005/12/12.html#howToMakeMoneyOnThe...

[1] BloggerCon IV, Day 2: How to Make Money, Harvard Law School http://www.scripting.com/docNography/bloggerconIv/Day002/how...

[2] http://www.scripting.com/2004/11/10.html#When:7:50:58AM

[3] http://www.scripting.com/2006/04/19.html#When:2:01:39PM