Corporate Blogging: a new marketing communication tool fo companies

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. A corporate blog is a blog published by organization to reach the organization's goals. Internally blogs are generally referred to as tools for collaboration and knowledge management. In external communications the potential benefits include strengthened relationships with important target groups and the positioning of the publishing organization as well as the individuals within it as industry experts.

The purposes of blog usage can be grouped in three fields - brand building, customer service and promotion. There are five types of corporate blogs that can be catogorized based on the characteristics of authors and contents.

• Employee blog - a typical personal blog that is maintained by a single rank-and-file employee. When organizations took a hands-off approach, employee blogs are hosted on commercial sites. Although a majority of employee blogs are still hosted independently of the company web site, employee blogs are increasingly being hosted on ocmpany-owned domains as more and more companies are officially sponsoring employee blogging.


• Group blog - also called a collaborative blog, is written by several people. Most group blogs focus on a specific topic, often a technical one with autors who are experts on the topic. Some group blogs are started under emplyee's own volition and self-hosted. On the other hand, others are driven by strategic plans crafted by management and hosted in companies' official web sites.


• Executive blog - People have become more interested in top executives who run companies than in individual companies. When top executives appear in blogsphere, their blogs generate instant traffic and can be an effective tool to establish a direct connection with stakeholders.


• Promotional blog - The purpose of the promotional blog is to generate buzz about products and events. This type of blog is somewhat controversial among bloggers at large, primarily due to the lack of an authentic human voice.


• Newsletter blog - Aside from typical personal blogs, some organizations have launched a newsletter type of blog that officially represents their positions. Thus, this type of blog tends to filled with well-polished messages. Examples are Yahoo! Search Blog, Google Blog and Red Hat Magazine. They cover a variety of topics auch as company news and product information.
  

Related links:

1. Beginners' Guide to Corporate Blogging - http://www.corporateblogging.info/basics/corporatebloggingprimer.pdf

2. The many challenges of corporate blogging - http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/29/the-many-challenges-of-corporate-blogging/

3. A guide to corporate blogging - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/15/a-guide-to-corporate-blogging/

4. Top 25 blog posts on corporate blogging (2008/2009) - http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=1252

E-government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption strategies

E-government is the use of information and communication technologies in public administration combined with organisational change and new skills to improve public services and democratic processes and to strengthen support to public policies. It use information technology and e-commerce to provide citizens and organizations with more convenient access to government information and services and to provide delivery of public services to citizens, business partners, and those working in the public sector.

Ita implementation:

Seven main projects were identified to be the core of the e-government applications:

1. Project Monitoring System (PMS)

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

Other than these seven main projects under e-government flagships, several government agencies has also initiated online services for the public projects, aims to increase the ease and efficiency of public service to the people. Among others were Public Services Portal (myGovernment), e-Tanah, e-Consent, e-Filing, e-Local Government (e-PBT), e-Kehakiman, Custom Information System (SMK), Pensions Online Workflow Environment (POWER), and Training Information System (e-SILA).

Citizen's adoption strategies

E-Services form an emerging field, which is rapidly gaining attention and importance. Citizens expect and demand governmental services with a high degree of quality, quantity, and availability in a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, and year-round fashion. Governments all over the world are developing information systems and electronic services that have the capacity to meet these rising service needs and demands of citizens and other clients.

Success in delivering electronic services depends upon the capability and self-confidence of citizens in performing e-transactions, as well as their trust and confidence in the protection of their personal data within an open and accountable government.

The e-government applications are developed based on best understanding of citizen requirements. These applications will provide a seamless online service and thus improve traditional government services.

Review of Blooming.com

There are many local-commerce website in Malaysia and the lucky website that I had chosen is http://www.booming.com.my/. This is a website that specializes in gifts and flowers for various occasions.

This website has a large selection of flowers as gifts and it has more variety of flowers and is much customizable. The QUALITY FLOWERS and QUALITY SERVICES have been provided to customers and maintain consistently through the years. However, Noel.com becomes the main competitor to Blooming in e-commerce scene because Noel provides various type of gift compare to Blooming is more focus on flowers as gifts.

Being a gift website, Blooming does not have many choices of practical gifts that I could actually give to my friends and family members. Most of their arrays of gifts are very exotic in nature. Hence, they are not suitable to be given just to anyone. However, if a last-minute purchase needs to be made, and you don’t have any idea what to get, this website will be an excellent choice for you. You no need go out to choose for the gift but just sit at home and click to select the gift from the website. The delivery service is also provided. It is much more convenience compares to shopping.

This website not only focused on the ‘Valentine’ Day’ market, but also focused on Birthday, Wedding Day, because they are very ‘lovey-dovey’ in nature and have many flowers and cute soft toys and etc for purchase.

In conclusion, Blooming.com is an e-commerce site which provides a good quality of flowers and services to the user. The overall site design and layout of the website is also very nice and well organized.

Related links:
http://www.blooming.com.my/
http://www.noel.com.my/

Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction

E-auction fraud is a growing epidemic worldwide, as online shopping has grown significantly every year that online shopping has been available.

Most e-auction fraud cases involve straightforward scams where consumers allegedly win merchandise by being the highest bidder. All sounds good until they send the payment and never receive the merchandise.

Sometimes auction fraud cases involve slick descriptions that are presented and worded in a way that most people would miss important details.

Below are some tips on keeping risk at a minimum when purchasing items from an e-auction website:

• Be aware of phishing. Verify that you are receiving emails from the correct source and that you are logging in at the correct website.
• When making payment, prefer using your credit card over online transfer. Using a credit card give you the opportunity of a chargeback in case the transaction turns out a fraud. Use debit card, wire transfer, or money order only when you completely trust the seller.
• Use reputed escrow services. An escrow service mediates a buyer and a seller. They accept money from buyers and release them to a seller only when the buyer confirms that the product was received to his/her satisfaction. But be wary of sellers or buyers who themselves pose as an escrow service to cheat the other—a buyer posing as an escrow service gets a product released without making payment, or a seller poses as an escrow service to trick the buyer from making a payment.
• DO NOT entertain emails received from outside of the auction website mentioning that the highest bidder has withdrawn and you are now entitled for a product. They veer you off the auction website and you lose any protection that the website may provide.
• NEVER make a deal with a seller outside the auction. Although they sound lucrative, you are at a very high risk of being cheated.
• READ the auction website’s terms and conditions, buyer protection policy, refund policy before making a transaction. Here, they list in how many days the order will be fulfilled, what if the product you receive is not the same as what was advertised, and so on. Also check that the policies are fair on both buyers and sellers.
• Check if the product you are purchasing has appropriate warranty and documentation with it. If not, make sure that you intend to purchase it without that protection. Check if shipping and delivery is covered by the seller or if you have to bear those costs.
• Check that you are not purchasing a product that you are not allowed to possess lawfully.
• BE WARY of products that offer revolutionary results. In most cases, they are fraudulent claims.
• DO NOT respond to emails that ask for your personal information, such as your log in details or credit card details.
• READ the online auction website for feedback on the seller and a rating that they give to sellers and buyers. Most online auctions rate the sellers and buyers based on their transactions’ feedback.
• READ the product features and the model number that you intend to purchase. Verify these with what is being advertised by the seller.
• When giving your credit card details or your debit account details at a website, check that the Internet connection you are using is secure. Look for the lock at the bottom or https (an‘s’ appended to ‘http’) in the address field of your browser. These indicate that the connection is a secure one.
• Avoid making a transaction if anything in the auction seems suspicious to you.
• If you are cheated on any product purchase, be sure to post a note on the online auction website and let them know personally.

Moblie Payment System in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers' adoption strategies

For the adoption from Wikipedia website, Mobile payment (also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing) is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, SmartPhone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other such device.
The mobile payment can be used to purchase any number of digital goods and physical goods. For example digital goods are ring tones, games, wallpaper for mobile phone and the booking cinema ticket and air ticket. Usually purchase digital good are through by SMS based transaction payments or mobile web payment (WAP).

Mobile payments services indeed have a great potential and advantage. Consumers are more comfortable with low-value transactions over such non-traditional means. Common applications will include payment for transportation, parking, restaurants, convenience stores, retail outlets, e-tickets to name a few - typically for low-value items. This helps especially when consumers are in need of cash but doesn’t have any in hand, therefore with mobile payments they do not need to even search for an ATM machine to withdraw the needed money for the payment.

In order to encourage consumer to adopt mobile payment systems, it should enhance consumer confidence toward security, safety and reliability of the systems. It can also educate consumers through seminar or advertisement about the function and the usage of mobile payment system. Furthermore, it should increase the number of company that can accept mobile payment system.

electronic currency

Electronic currency also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency which refers to money or scrip that is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. The examples of electronic money are Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit. EFT refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically while direct deposit is a banking term used to refer to certain systems used to transfer money.


Electronic currency allows its holder to buy the goods and services that the greatness of the internet offers. A private currency may use gold to provide extra security, such as digital gold currency. An e-currency system may be full backed by gold (like e-gold and c-gold), non-gold backed, or both gold and non-gold backed (like e-Bullion and Liberty Reserve). Other than that, some private organizations, such as US military use private currencies such as Eagle Cash. Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to the end user, such as Paypal and WebMoney, but other systems such as e-gold, sell only through third party digital currency exchangers.


The main focuses of digital cash development are:
1. being able to use it through a wider range of hardware such as secured credit cards.
2. linked bank accounts that would generally be used over an internet means for exchange with a secure micropayment system such as in large corporations (PayPal)


The digital cash can provide many benefits such as convenience and privacy, increased efficiency of transactions, lower transaction fees, and new business opportunities with the expansion of economic activities on the internet. Other than that, there are many potential issues with the use of digital cash. The transfer of digital currencies raised local issues such as how to levy taxes or the possible ease of money laundering. There are also potential macroeconomic effects such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies (total amount of digital cash versus total amount of real cash available, basically the possibility that digital cash could exceed the real cash available). These issues may only be addressable by some type of cyberspace regulations or laws that regulate the transactions and watch for signs of trouble.


Electronic currency trading can let you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. In fact, some of the experts will suggest the beginners to start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes of electronic currency. Besides, electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that will eat up your profit with a huge amount of fees and give you more profit and money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency trading such as MG E-currency, IT GOLD.com



Related links:

1. http://www.selfseo.com/story-6264.php

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_currency

3. http://www.romow.com/business-blog/benefits-of-e-currency-trading/

Credit Cards Debt: causes and prevention

Credit cards do provide convenient for most of us in our daily life. However, great responsibility comes with having a credit card. The number of people who now have credit card debts is at an all time high; credit cards have become easier to obtain and more tempting to use concurrently, which is a lethal combination.

With the debts rising, it is not surprising that individuals have started to realize the financial problem they have created by the constant and indiscriminate spending they have carried out.

What caused credit cards debt? Poor purchasing decisions, lack of information on credit card fees, and disregard for upcoming credit payments are among the reasons why many credit-card users are often hard-pressed in paying their debts.

Furthermore, poor money management also causes credit cards debt. Most people are unable to manage their expenses well and always spend over their income. People, who are experiencing under-employment, where they were over-qualified to their current position, may fail to balance out their expenses with their current income. These people tend to be irresponsibility as they do not concern about their future, by spending their future money.

So how can we prevent these problems?

Be credit smart. Applying for a credit card application means you are ready to assume the responsibility for paying your credit.

Use your credit cards wisely and sparingly. Remember: Paying goods and services using credit cards are more expensive than using cash or checks. Credit payments include interest and other fees. Use credit cards as sparingly as possible. If you really need to use credit cards, carry only the cards that you will actually use.

Avoid impulse shopping on your credit card.

Savings. Save living expenses for the period of three to six months. This can help you when you facing an urgent need to use money.