So Forbes.com, thanks to Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT system, is going where even Microsoft feared to tread. Like the software company’s ill-fated SmartTags, Forbes.com highlights individual keywords in a story. These words are then sold to advertisers.

Laying aside the blatant editorial problems this may create, the ads are slow-loading and contextually dumb (which, thanks to Google’s AdWords, is almost inexcusable). For example, a review of the Dodge SRT-10 mentions remote locking; when I checked, the word “remote” linked to a tooltip-like ad for GoToMyPC. What does this have to do with a new pick-up? I’m not really sure.

Squeezing as much revenue out of one’s content is the mandate of almost every commercial publisher, but as any salesperson will tell you, if you blow the pitch, you’ve lost the customer. Forbes.com has tried to do something innovative, and, thanks to Vibrant Media, is tripping over its own cleverness.