Ready to summit our blog~

28 July 2008(Monday) is our due date to summit this assignment. Thanks to every team members to put their efforts in this blog. We are enjoying to do this assignment by this method. It does not have any stress when doing these. E-commerce is a quite interesting subject for me. I think it is a new trend in the future days, although Malaysia is not so popular yet. Trying to discover more in the internet. Lastly, enjoy your life and has a nice days~

Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies

What is coporate blogging?
According to the wikipedia, the corporate blog is corporate web log that published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals thought the internal blog or external blog or even the CEO blog. Readers can easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog with the browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer 7 that support the RSS technology.

How the corporate blog help the organizations?
Corporate blog is useful in encourage the employee participation in the discussion and contribute their expertise, explain and clarify policies, react on public criticism on certain issues or free discussion of issues, collective intelligence from employee, direct communication between various layers of an organization, and finally increase a sense of community.

According to the website, Top 15 Corporate Blog ranked in the May 2008, the Google’s blog is the most popular blog, follow by Adobe’s blog and Flickr’s blog as the 2th and 3th.



Google Incorporatation deployed an internal blog for its employees shortly after acquiring the blogging service Blogger in early 2003, and since then Google staffers have found many useful and creative ways for the internal blog. Employees keeping track of meeting notes, sharing diagnostics information, sharing snippets of code, as well as more staff uses, like letting co-workers know what they're thinking about and what they're up to.

What are the pros and cons of corporate blogging?
Pros:

• Highly cost effective.
• Be more accessible.
• Ease way of sharing information.
• Reach more employees with a single message.
• Create a searchable archive of thoughts and ideas.
• Save time and indirectly getting large volume of customers.
• Give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
• Employees' questions and feedback will be permanently recorded on a blog.
• Organizations can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.

Cons:

• Loss of productivity.
• Need to master a new style of communicating.
• Too easy for defamation and invasion of privacy.
• Creates an expectation that organization will post regularly.
• Breach information security and loss of company confidentiality.
• Employees with low education level lack of the knowledge with developing technologies.
• Majority of older generation are not comfortable using the internet and related technologies.
• Risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.
• Difficult for executives to write freely, particularly at listed companies where they are legally required to publish significant information to all investors at the same time.

Technorati Tags: corporate blogging google adobe flickr

Review a local e-commerce site: Lelong.com

One of the Malaysia e-commerce website which I visited often is Lelong.com.my. It is an auction platform that provides people to buying and selling thing online.

You may choose buy the thing you like by the way complete bid with other, or may directly contact with auctioneer and negotiate the price with him/her, buy directly. There have a lot of functions to make you use their website more convenient, like Categories Search Engine- which provides you searching by category like Beauty and health, book and comic, phone and communication, it is an easy search engine and the searching speed is quite fast, very useful.

Second is Auctioneer Profile and Ratting, this function allows you to check the auctioneer trade history and record, it help us to have more confident and reassurance trade with him/her. Normally we will find one trusted auctioneer better have high success trade percentage, therefore can reduce the opportunity of fraud auction.

Other than that if you find that this auctioneer is very trustful and you hope to have more trade with him/her, you also can visit his/her store and check other item. The design of the website take easy and comfort way, do not have too much complex background.

If you bid successful, you must make payment by follow the auctioneer instructions. For example, bank in the money to him first. If you never try bid auction online you should try, you will find that is very excited, and you can learn a lot from the whole process. But before you bid or sell your item you must register account with your real identity first. It require your IC number for avoid you making e-auction fraud.

Technorati Tags: E-auction Malaysia E-commerce

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies.

The Electronic Government initiative was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It will improve how the government operates internally, as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. At the same time, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

To accelerate the objectives of Vision 2020, a path has already been defined through seven innovative Flagship Applications. These applications are engineered to start the MSC initiative and create a multimedia heaven for innovative producers and users of multimedia technology. Both local and foreign companies work with various government agencies to enhance the socio-economic development of Malaysia. The Multimedia Super Corridor offers a Malaysian initiative for the Information Age.

The Flagship Applications are:

• Electronic Government,
• Multipurpose Card,
• Smart School,
• Telehealth,
• R&D Clusters,
• E-Business and,
• Technopreneur Development.
  

The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

• Project Monitoring System (SPP II),
• Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS),
• Generic Office Environment (GOE),
• Electronic Procurement (EP),
• Electronic Services (E-Services),
• Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX) and
• E-Syariah.
  
  
  
  
  

So, what is the common problems that facing by Malaysian citizen?
People always will think about the security problem first. Do their information be seen by others people? Is that secure to pay online? Of course the government will concern about the security issue. The government has several ways to secure our people while they involve in the e-services. As a user of the e-services provided by the government, we also need to have the knowledge about internet security, like phising, trojan, or spyware. These are the common ways to "take" your information easily.

For a successful e-government, there are some characteristics need to achieve:
1. Convenience and Satisfaction(Services provided anytime, anyhow, anywhere)
People will have a choice of channels to government information and services that are convenient, easy to use and deliver what is wanted.

2. Integration and Efficiency(Services that are integrated, customer-centric and efficient)
Information and services will be integrated, packaged and presented to minimise cost for people, businesses and departments

3. Participation(Participation in government)
People will be better informed and better able to participate by having easier access to government information and processes

Once the government provides a very nice services, why not the people will like to use it?

Ways to encourage more citizens to use the e-government services

• Increase the popularity of e-services through TV or newspaper advertisements
• Hold campaigns to educate people how to use the services easily.
• Provide multiple language website.
  

Links:

http://www.govtech.com/pcio/99814
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Government
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2029204.stm
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073050330739

Technorati Tags: E-Government

Things to Take Notes to Prevent E-auctions Fraud

Electronic auction (e-auction), auctions conducted online such as www.lelong.com.my and www.ebay.com.my. Although the majority of consumer goods are not suitable for auctions and are best sold through conventional sales techniques (i.e., posted-price retailing), the flexibility offered by online auction trading may offer innovative market processes.

However, e-auction has the possibility of fraud; the fraud rate in e-auction is very high. Fraud may be conducted by sellers or buyers such as bid shielding (a buyer’s action), shilling (a seller’s action), and so on.

As a result, there are several things need to take notes in order to protect against e-auction fraud:

• User identity verification.
  Verify e-auction users’ identity. By offering their Social Security number, driver’s license number, and date of birth, users can qualify for the highest level of verification on e-auction.

• Authentication service.
  Product authentication is a way of determining whether an item is genuine and described appropriately.

• Grading services.
  Grading is a way of determining the physical condition of an item, such as “poor quality” or “mint condition.”

• Feedback Forum.
  Feedback Forum allows registered buyers and sellers to build up their online trading reputations. It provides users with the ability to comment on their experiences with other individuals.

• Insurance policy.
  Some sites provide insurance on auction frauds but usually extra cost is incurred.

• Escrow services.
  Both sellers and buyers in a deal are protected with an independent third party. This third party will verify the payment from the buyer and inform the seller. This third party will also hold onto the money from buyer until confirmation is received from buyer to pay seller. (An example of a provider of online escrow services is www.tradenable.com)

• Nonpayment punishment.
  Implement a policy against those who do not honor their winning bids in order to help protect sellers, a first-time nonpayment results in a friendly warning. A sterner warning is issued for a second-time offense, a 30-day suspension for a third offense, and indefinite suspension for a fourth offense.

• Appraisal services.
  There has a variety of methods to appraise items, including expert assessment of authenticity and condition and reviewing what comparable items have sold for in the marketplace in recent months.

• Physical inspection.
  It can eliminate many problems especially for collectors’ items.

• Item verification.
  One way of confirming the identity and evaluating the condition of an item is through verification. With verification, neutral third parties will evaluate and identify an item through a variety of means.

• Other security services.

Technorati Tags: E-auction fraud