Still baffled by the popularity of his blog, Stephen Arnold, who will give the closing keynote speech at the Online Information 2008 show, has little enthusiasm for blogosphere backslapping and puts his efforts into content critique instead.

Q: Where is your blog?
A: arnoldit.com/wordpress

Q: Describe your blog and the categories you have on it
A: I'm an adult goose who comments on search and content processing.

Q How long have you been blogging?
A: Since January 2008.

Q: What started you off blogging?
A: To protect my term "beyond search". My attorney told me that to protect those two words I would have to do something with the term. It's an intellectual property matter. Now I'm stuck with it.

Q: Do you comment on other blogs and what is the value of commenting?
A: I comment on anything that interests me that is related to content processing: traditional media, upstart companies and anything in between. I'm highly critical; I make no attempt to be fair.

Q: Which bloggers do you watch, link to and why?
A: Not many. The list is on the site. I'm not interested in links; I provide opinion.

Q: How does your organisation benefit from your presence in the blogosphere?
A: Again, I was told that I needed to blog if I wanted to own the "beyond search" term.

Q: What are the blogs in your sector that you trust?
A: No clue; I pay no attention. I do primary research for organisations. Most weblogs are written by people who aren't experts. Most of the ones I've seen are baloney.

Q: What do you personally get out of it for your career?
A: I'm at the end of my career; I get nothing. I own the term "beyond search" on the strength of the content on my weblog. I put no new stuff on my weblog and I make that clear. I'm the antithesis of the 25-year-old who works in search.

Q: What good things have happened to you that could only have happened because of blogging?
A: Nothing good, other than owning the term. I had no idea that the weblog would become popular. Its baloney compared with the studies I have done. I'm baffled by the fascination with my weblog. I have no interest in being popular. I have a readership in the tens of thousands and I'm baffled. I'm the opposite to IWR. My weblog is about what's important. When someone criticises me, I think that's good, and say "keep thinking". That's what it's about.

Q: Setting work aside, which blogs do you read just for fun?
A: None, I work.

Selection box: Beyond Search's blogroll

What search sounds like: altsearchengines.com

Content management big boys' scrap: bmoc.wordpress.com

Advice from Down Under: steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/cat_search_tools.html

A pair of Google goggles: blog.adheresolutions.com and blogoscoped.com

Natural language processing: lingpipe-blog.com

Search engine marketing/optimisation: pandia.com/index.html