One way to track readers using an RSS aggregator is to put a clear pixel at the bottom of each post. Most, from what I have seen, RSS aggregators display HTML. The server would do the math necessary to calculate unique viewers, etc.
In terms of advertising, I am still in favor of decision support tools that help people find a product/service they are interested in purchasing. So, if I did a review of a online broker I would love to be able to put a link to a online broker decision support tool at the bottom of my post. The tool provider would track click throughs from people reading my post (via an ID like those used in affiliate programs) and track them all the way through the purchase process. (BTW, it can also be very lucrative. Brokers will pay upwards of $150 per new account. If the decision support service provider took 1/3, the author would get $100 per account. This would also work well with lead generation for high-end products. The conversion rates are spectacular given my experience.) One way to provide tools like this users would be to build on the shortcuts feature in Radio. Shortcuts is clipart for weblogs. A shortcut allows me to publish a post (either a picture, a block of HTML, a link, etc.) and assign it a name. So, when I want to include this clipart in my weblog, all I would do is put the name into my post in double quotes. For example, I have assigned a small icon to the name: audio. Here it is in double quotes:  . Radio substitutes the icon clipart for the name in double quotes. Very simple. A preloaded shortcuts section with miniadvertisements that point to decision support would make adding the link to your posts easy. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
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7:52:34 AM 
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