Google released a new product called AdSense that offers website owners another way besides affiliate programs to monetize their traffic. Its a piece of Javascript you insert into your code that, when your page is served to a reader, examines the text on that page and serves up a couple text ads it thinks are related to that page's content. It's much like what they do to the right of their search results.
I'm always looking for ways to offset the cost of hosting my site, but unfortunately I don't have a good page on my site to use this. It works best with very topically focused pages, not surprising considering it's adapted from their search results technology in which it only needs to interpret one pointed search query to generate results. On a page like a general personal weblog, which covers all sorts of topics, the technology seems to serve up a random mishmash of ads.
Nevertheless, I threw it up on my recommended reading page. If you click on any of the ads I make a couple pennies. The best way to support my site is still to click through on any of my Amazon links and make a purchase. But only if you find my recommendation useful, of course. Make me earn it.