the site in question is : http://www.vocabulary.com/
It works well, gives you a daily quiz, and has achievements and graphs to keep you going.
I'm considering building something similar for my native language, when I started thinking about money.
I can't find ads, premium memberships. Yet I assume their user base is substantial. They also bought a great domain name. So do they have a business model? Or just a hobbyist on steroids?
Here is the launch press release: http://www.thinkmap.com/pressrelease.jsp?id=1290