Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Corporate blog has become a new marketing communication tool for companies. Corporate blog has divided into three types and there are internal blogs, external blogs, and CEO blogs. Thus, all current browsers which include Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 enable readers to read the recent posts easily without truly visit the blog through supporter of RSS technology.

One of the successful blogs is Amazon Web Services blog by Amazon.com that about Amazon web services, products, tools and developer information. It helps to improve the communication and its customer services, attract more people to consume and discuss new products online.

A corporate blog can be:

• A tool that helps the organization achieve a business goal-Redeploying scare resource just to have a blog makes no sense if there is no business case for one.
• A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace। It is however no substitute for bad products or lack of commitment to customers.
• An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers.

Corporate blogs are not only interesting and useful, they are also helping the companies hat author them develop a very new relationship with their customers। In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, cute and thus purchase consideration.

References:

http://specgirlz.blogspot.com/2009/02/corporate-blogging-new-marketing.html

http://www.internetviz-newsletters.com/bulldog/e_article000404957.cfm

http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/corporate-blogging-a-new-marketing-tool-for-companies/

http://38blog123.blogspot.com/2008/07/corporate-blogging-new-marketing.html

http://ecomspace.blogspot.com/2008/06/corporate-blogging-new-marketing.html

Review a local, transactional e-commerce site

After we do some research, we found that local e-commerce website is at http://www.lelong.com.my/ which is a website in Malaysia that provides online trading at a low cost. This e-commerce site had developed from Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transaction to become Business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship. Some of the companies using this website to sell their products. According to this website there are approximately 70% of all items posed for auction on lelong.com.my are sold. So, all user get a chance of obtaining a successful transaction.

Lelong.com has provide many types of product such as books, cameras, cars, computers, computer’s software, jewelry, gemstone, clocks, watches, clothes, and even foods and beverages also sell in this website. Some big company use this website to sell their product like prepaid top up card is selling in this website and the price is lower than we buy at shop. Beside that, people like to collect antique or other like stamps, models also can found it when surf through this web site. It had properly classified the entire item in the website which is very convenient to all the users to find their favorable item. There are different languages in this website to be choosing by the user according to their preference.

This website can manage every aspect of the settlement process and remove risk from online transaction. Besides is also can manage well of the buyer want to get what they pay for and the seller wants to get paid. Users can paid by credit card after the transaction is successful.

Lelong.com.my provides a forum to let users to go in to share their opinion or any queries. Users can ask something about the product and can leave a comment whether they satisfy to this service or not. Most of the Malaysian are prefer to use Lelong.com.my as local E-commerce site to buy their product because it is more convenient, their no need to walk or drive a car to a physical store to buy it, they just click then the product will send to them within few days only. Besides that there are many product to let user to buy, users can buy whatever thing they want through this website

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from he students perspective

Times change the generation, it’s also change the learning style that we offer use in past. In the past, the learning is form to be vocal and written paper. However with the flow of the time and technologic grow in the years, a lot of high education school has come out with the style to teaching and letting the student to learning with different way compare to the past education formal. In the past, mostly educations are face-to face with the lecture to gain the knowledge. And now the styles of learning are changing form to e-learning which have improve a lot of in a lot aspect and also bring other side-effect to it.

Currently, the universities of Malaysia have already apply in the system of e-learning to education the youngster to provide more knowledge in advance to increase the ability of understanding and improve their learning ability. in the student perspective, we found out that e-learning have a lot provide advantages to us to sharing our knowledge and also more discussion be form to increasing our knowledge ,furthermore our ability. the e-learning also have help us in a lot aspect such as help students to communicate with their tutors, get clarifications regarding their subjects and study and access teaching materials through e-libraries. Universities and colleges which provide online degrees involve more and more electronic facilities to give their online students fast and qualified assistance. Students' interactions have become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Other than that, it also helps the student in saving time and flexible, which can get online resources, communicate with his tutor or class mates, send his query and write term paper at any time he can get access to the Internet.


The e-learning also have the pros in Asynchronous interaction. Unlike face-to-face or telephone conversations, electronic mail does not require participants to respond immediately. As a result, interactions can be more succinct and to-the-point, discussion can stay more on-track, and people can get a chance to craft their responses. This can lead to more thoughtful and creative conversations.

The cons of the e-learning are may be become a weakness for the learners with low motivation may fall behind. They are unable to follow up the topic of discussion and may make them give up in education and create more frustrated emotion in learning. And also may feel isolated from their teacher or classmates.

Secondly, hands-on or practical work is impossible in e-learning. Cause it need someone to guide and giving advice to correct their mistake.

In the end, I would conclude that, there have the advantages of e-learning however we must use it wise cause may bring up a lot matter in advance when we use in improper ways.


References:
http://www.newman.ac.uk/Students_Websites/~m.m.friel/dis.htm
http://www.articlealley.com/article_78603_45.html

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

E-government also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government is a diffused neologism used to refer to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve gonerment service, transaction and interaction with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.

http://www.gov.my/ was launched in 1990’s in Malaysia. The website provides information ranging from payment to complaint applications, search and services. Beside that, users can download 3300 government forms for free. The service provided through the website is the government proactive way to help enhance the public service delivery system. This website also provided loan and quit rent payment, application to update mailing address with the Employee Provident Fund.

E-service is one of the pilot applications the Government has embarked upon to demonstrate how information and communication technology can be exploit for the benefit of the public deliveries via the fastest and most convenient ways, the internet, kiosk and mobile hand phone. Through e-service we can checking and pay JPJ summons through online. Besides we also can pay the electric bill and telephone bill through online to TNB and TM. http://www.gov.my/ makes our life more easy and convenient, we don’t have to go to the government department take number, queue up and pay all the bills. Sometimes traffic jam on the road waste our times only.

E-procurement is the government to business Electronic Government System. Traditionally, interested suppliers would write in and submit their quotation. Suppliers would make several trips to the office, checking on their status filling out countless forms. It allow Government Ministries to make an electronic approval process, create, submit and receive purchase order, delivery orders and remit payment to suppliers.

E-syariah allows clients to sort out their claims with the help if mediators without even having to step foot into hallowed halls. It allows teleconferencing and mediation via internet to update the level of service. It makes things easier for public and lesser work for the count. Besides less time spent at the counter and standardized documentation bodes well for better reference.

Nowadays many people also using online pay all the bill because can save many times and money. Besides that through online they also can search many information for reference.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

Nowadays, there is high potential for mobile telecommunication networks to become an important electronic payment channel in our country as mobile phone services will make life easier for everyone. Mobile payment system is a system using mobile devices to make monetary transactions such as pay bills, perform banking transactions or shop online beyond voices.

In Malaysia there are several companies that already launched mobile payment systems such as Celcom, Maxis, Digi, TMtouch, Maybank, Hong Leong Bank, Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd, and mobileExec Sdn Bhd.

Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad, Malaysia's premier mobile network with the widest coverage, and paybox, the trendsetting company for mobile payment solutions, will be launching a mobile Banking & mobile Payment solution for the Malaysian market. Mobile Banking (m-banking) and mobile Payment (m-payment) in Malaysia provide real-time banking and payment instructions that enable customers access to their current e-banking systems using a Java client on their phone. It allows customers to access their accounts at any bank, at a minimal investment by the participating banks. Besides, Celcom will expand the system to include other partners and provide extended remittance, bill payment and merchant payment services.

As for consumers shop and pay via mobile phones, Visa International collaborated with Nokia Corporation had introduce the world's first credit card payment pilot system in Malaysia recently, called "Mobile Visa Wave Payment Pilot". The backbone of the mobile payment system is Visa Wave smart card technology. The technology is equipped with sophisticated radio frequencies that eliminate the need to swipe credit cards into a reader. The service will be available on the Nokia 3230 prototype phone. Users will be able to use the phones to make payments in 2,500 outlets equipped with Visa Wave readers. Nokia's business development senior manager Risto Sipila expects such services to become more popular as, mobile phone users worldwide are likely to go up to 3 billion by 2008. It is because visa is using a specialized chip with the latest cryptography, security and smart card technologies which making the system extremely secure and forging difficult.

MobileExec currently provides premium rate SMS messaging across the all major Malaysian carriers. In the Malaysia, premium rate SMS and reverse billing services are regulated by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Such services are developing fast in the Europe and recently in Malaysia. It provides customers with admission or money off vouchers which can be unique coded or designed to allow viral spread. The mobile payment gateway service covers all mobile operators on Malaysia, with support for prepaid and postpaid service billings. Those packages include the following:

1. Project Planning and Management Services


2. Product Catalogue Submission (to all mobile operators)


3. Premium Billing System Configuration


4. Systems and Load Testing


5. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) will all mobile networks


6. Service Launch


7. Monthly Service Monitoring and Progress Report


8. Settlement Reports, collections from mobile operators

In short, the mobile payment system is easier, more cost-effective and more convenient for consumers, merchants and service-providers to execute and receive payments. Furthermore, mobile payment is safe and secure. It allows people to make payment at anytime from anywhere with just one SMS. It also allows people to receive money from anyone at anytime. As for merchants, business can be done anywhere such as conduct billing. There will be increased business opportunities for merchants as remote mobile payment can be done easily with the lower transaction and maintenance cost.

Electronic currency

In our study electronic currency is the digital equivalent of paper currency and coins, which enables secure and anonymous purchase of low-priced item which is maybe the item, is selling below RM10. Electronic currency also called electronic money it also known as electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency.

Electronic currency refers to money or scrip which is exchange only electronically which mean do a transaction through online and pay the payment through online. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are the examples of electronic currency. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Nowadays electronic currency is widely used throughout the world. Today nearly all the bank and institution are handled electronically though a series of computer network.

Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to end user, such as Paypal, WebMoney, BitPass, Firstgate’s Click and Buy, PayLoadz, Paystone, Peppercoin, Beenz, Digicash, and also Flooz. Thus, Paypal is my target to discuss.

Paypal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfer to be made through the internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders.

A PayPal account can be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card. Paypal is an example of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce.

Currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 184 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide such as Australian dollar, Chinese renminbi, Hong kong dollar, Mexican peso, Singapore dollar and etc.

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, due in theaters on February 13, 2009!

Rebecca Bloomwood is a sweet and charming New York City girl who has a tiny, little problem that is rapidly turning into a big problem: shes hopelessly addicted to shopping and drowning in a sea of debt. While Rebecca has dreams of working for a top fashion magazine, she can't quite get her foot in the door that is, until she snags a job as an advice columnist for a new financial magazine published by the same company. Overnight, her column becomes hugely popular, turning her into an overnight celebrity, But when her compulsive shopping and growing debt issues threaten to destroy her love life and derail her career, she struggles to keep it all from spiraling out of controland is ultimately forced to reevaluate whats really important in life. END!

Just click the following link if you wish to see the trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYYCSEV-i1Y&feature=fvst

Alright, no more discussion about Confessions of Shopaholic, please!!! I mean no more cos we are heading back to week 5 task. Oh ya~! Week 5 task. What is it, ya?! Oh..It's Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention. Ever wonder why I suddenly link "that movie" with one of this week task? It's so simple. If you already watched "that movie" then you will know what exactly happen to Rebecca Bloomwood. She drowning in the sea of debt from her credit cards and struggle to save herself from suffocated. Haha..! I do believe that now you realize the relationship of "that movie" and my task.

Allows me to start my task. I believe that everyone is familiar with credit card (Magic card is the term used in "that movie"). It allows consumers to repeatedly borrow money or purchase products and services on credit. Normally, it is issued by banks, savings and loans, retail stores and other businesses. Credit cards or magic card suppose to make our life easier, but it gives rise to negative consequences in our society.

Today, credit card debt has become the main contributor to personal debt and cause for many financial problems. The following are some of the common causes of credit card debts.

1. Maintaining expenses on a reduced income ~ Excessive spending is one of the common causes of credit card debt. This is especially true if you continue to make charges after experiencing a reduction in your monthly income.


2. Poor money management ~ Spending without planning is likely to result in excessive expenses and inability to pay the monthly credit card bills. Higher interest rates will be charged on late payment and further increase your debts.


3. Not savings or saving too little ~ Those who are contributing very little or no funds to savings, are likely reach for their credit cards to cover any unexpected or emergency expenses.


4. Overspending ~ People often spend too much on things that they may not really need. As we live in a consumer culture, with glittery advertisements beckoning us to buy, around every corner, sometimes, we may use credit cards beyond our means.


5. Banking on windfall ~ Spending tomorrow’s money today is very tempting. Relying on credit cards to meet your monthly purchases will lead you down into credit card debt at the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, don't worry! Be happy~! There is always someway you can do to save yourself, right? Here are some useful tips to prevent credit card debts.

1. Manage Your Finance ~ Plan for your money by listing out all income and expenses on a monthly basis. It is important to know exactly where all of your funds are going. With a great management plan, you won't need to pull out your credit card from your wallet.


2. Choose Credit Card Wisely ~ Be cautious when choosing credit card. Try to find the credit card offers the lowest interest rate by reviewing and comparing various offers in the market.


3. Control Spending ~ Be extremely careful with your spending once you get the credit card. Consider whether you can afford the amount credited at the end of the month each time you use credit card. Set a credit limit as low as possible but sufficient to meet your daily needs.


4. Always Pay on Time ~ Paying on time is one of the best solution to shun away from debt. This can restrict debt from being grow into a huge amount that contributes to financial problem.


5. View Credit Card the Same as with Cash ~ Keep an equal perspective regarding credit card and cash. This helps you to be more aware and keen on spending too much.

Be a wise consumer and use your credit cards cautiously and don’t let credit cards control you. Do remember this: "You're the magician. So, magic card depend on you to show the magic to the people around you. Don't let magic card control you!"

References:

http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html

http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/creditcardmistakes.html

http://www.stop-credit-card-debt.com/2008/07/24/tips-on-credit-card-debt-prevention/

http://learnfobia.com/category-Business-62/tutorial-Manage-and-Eliminate-your-Credit-Card-Debt-1989.html

***HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY TO YOU, JIN!***

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Pre-paid cash card is an electronic card which has monetary value loaded into it and it is reloadable. This electronic cards had maked our life become more convenient and its not like credit card we do not need pay extra charges for it. It is easy to be use, just tap the pre-paid cash card on the entry card reader then can straight go.

First example: Octopus card in Hong Kong

Hong Kong government had launched this pre-paid cash card called Octopus card in September 1997 to collect fares for the public transport and also use for payment of purchasing goods for small amount of money at retail shop, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, car parks, and parking meters in Hong Kong. The octopus card system was the first contactless smart card system in the world since grown into a widely used payment system. Octopus card are very familiar to the Hong Kong peoples, the cards are used by 95 percent of the population of Hong Kong.


Second example: Touch 'n Go card in Malaysia

Besides Hong Kong, Malaysia also had launched pre-paid cash card called Touch 'n Go card. Touch 'n Go was develop by Teras Teknologi Sdn Bhd and owned by Rangkaian Segar Sdn Bhd as is now known as Touch 'n Go Sdn Bhd. Touch 'n Go card can be used at all highways in Malaysia when we pass through the toll we can pay for it by Touch 'n Go card. Besides that when we using public transport we can pay the public transport fare by using this card such as KTM, LRT, and Rapid KL bus. We can even pay our parking fees using this card in some shopping center located in KL. This card can make our life easy like we no need queue so long when buy public transport ticket.
Users can reload the card at toll station, particular train station, Atm machine and even now petrol station also provides this reload service to the public. So it is very easy when the money inside the card has finish

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

Nowadays, e-commerce is used widely all around the world. In the developed country, the usage of e-commerce is extremely high as compare to Malaysia. The main reason that Malaysian does not practice e-commerce in daily life is because they feel unsecure. They worried that their personal details will be disclosed in the internet since there are lots of fake website existed.

Therefore, 3rd party certification programme took place to ensure the securities of users where a digital certificate issued. A digital certificate is a digital document that validates the identity of the certificate’s owner. Certificate Authority (CA), a trusted party, issued the digital certificates to users or to organizations. Furthermore, the digital certificate will valid for a certain period of time.

Digital certificates rely on public key cryptography for their own authentication. When a digital certificate is issued, the issuing certification authority signs the certificate with its own private key. To validate the authenticity of a digital certificate, a user can obtain that certification authority’s public key and use it against the certificate to determine if it was signed by the certification authority.


For a digital certificate to be useful, it has to be structured in an understandable and reliable way so that the information within the certificate can be easily retrieved and understood. The S/MIME standard specifies that digital certificates used for S/MIME conform to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) X.509 standard. S/MIME version 3 specifically requires that digital certificates conform to version 3 of X.509. Because S/MIME relies on an established, recognized standard for the structure of digital certificates, the S/MIME standard builds on that standard’s growth and thus increases its acceptance. The X.509 standard specifies that digital certificates contain standardized information. Specifically, X.509 version 3 certificates contain version number, serial number, certificate algorithm identifier, issuer name, validity period, subject name, subject public key information, issuer unique identifier, subject unique identifier, extension and certification authority’s digital signature.


MSC Trustgate




The most popular 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd, is corporate in 1999. It is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA), a Malaysia law that sets a global precedent for the mandate of a Certificate Authority. The vision of the corporate is “To enable organization to conduct their business securely over the Internet, as much as what they have been enjoying in the physical world.” Followings are some of the products and services in MSC Trustgate:




As a conclusion, a secure infrastructure is essential on the E-commerce in order to protect the publishers and users. The establishment of Certificate Authority plays a vital role not only to issue digital certificate but also have to ensure the security of E-commerce website. We, as an Internet users, must be aware with the security trademark to prevent from become a victim of security issues.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

We live in an increasingly online world. Many transactions can be done through internet, such as online banking, booking, buying, auction and etc. However, it raise the issues that hacker who to hack into computer in order to theft those confidential data. So, keeping our personal and financial data as secure as possible. In the following, some guidelines learn to keep our private personal and financial data safe online.






1. Choose your PIN wisely. While we want to choose something we’ll remember, we don’t want it to be something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning our birth date or your child’s name. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer us more security.


2. Secure network. If we have a wireless network at home or workplace, make sure that it is secure. A hacker can gain access to anything you do over an unsecured network in a matter of seconds. If we look at the documentation for wireless router, we’ll be able to find out how to lock router and encrypt our information. It won’t affect the way we use wireless network, but it will keep intruders from getting a hold of info.


3. Don’t reuse passwords. As tempting as it may be to reuse passwords, it’s a really good practice to use a different password for every account we access online. This way, if someone does find out what our password is for one credit card, they won’t also be able to access our checking, brokerage and email accounts. It may take a little more organization to use different passwords for each site, but it can help marginalize the effects of unauthorized access to your accounts.


4. Don’t put private information on public computers. If we’re away from home, make sure not to save private information onto a computer used by the public. If we’re accessing a private account at the library or cyber café, make sure to log out completely from our accounts, and never choose to save login information (like username or password) on these computer.



5. Protect computer’s security. Use as many tools as you can to guard our computer information from the nefarious. Failing to protect our computer is just as bad as leaving your door unlocked, your windows wide open, and a sign on the mat, saying, “Burglars, come on in.”

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is the process of attempting information illegally and fraudulently through the internet such as the usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a fake websites which mislead the real company’s customers to enter their details at the website. Examples like the PayPal, eBay, and online banks. These are many examples of phishing e-mail such as showing below.

For more examples, visit the link below.

http://www.chase.com/ccp/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/privacy_security/fraud/page/fraud_examples

Below are the methods that can prevent phishing:

Eliminating phishing mail

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails.

Monitoring and takedown

Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites. Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both volunteer and industry groups, such as Phistank.

Helping to identify legitimate sites

Since phishing is based on impersonation, preventing it depends on some reliable way to determine a website's real identity. For example, some anti-phishing toolbars display the domain name for the visited website. The pet name extension for Firefox lets users type in their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned to the site. If the site is suspect, then the software may either warn the user or block the site outright.Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check websites against the list. Microsoft's IE7 browser, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing measure. Firefox 2 uses Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from PhishTank and GeoTrust, as well as live whitelists from GeoTrust. Some implementations of this approach send the visited URLs to a central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy. According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an independent software testing company.

An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains: this will work with any browser, and is similar in principle to using a hosts file to block web adverts.

To mitigate the problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image.

Augmenting password logins

A method to prevent simple phishing of transaction numbers (TANs) is to associate each TAN with a "lock number". The bank's server sends the lock number as a challenge, and the user provides the corresponding TAN as the response. The server selects the key-lock pair randomly from the list to prevent acquiring two consecutive TANs. Lock numbers are not sequential, so that phishers can only guess correct lock numbers.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Do you ever think that how safe is your data? Nowadays, people often create, store and manage critical information through computer. All kinds of activity from banking to storing company's personal details are done through internet. Consequently, it is important for users to aware that computer security plays a major role in protecting their data from loss, damage and misuse.


In today's world, you need to worry about security for your PC in a whole different way. Spyware, adware, viruses and trojans are lucking online, waiting to infect your computer. These threats evolve over time and always find a better way to better the security software. Therefore, it is important to update security softwares frequently to keep our data safe from these threats. Here are some of the threats to your PC :

1. Spyware

Spyware is a type of malware that is installed surreptitiously on personal computer to collect information about users, their computer or browsing habits without their informed consent. Spyware is usually engineered to watch your online activity and uncover security flaws. The best way to avoid spyware is to avoid the sites and e-mails that leave it on your PC. There are a number of programs available that offer spyware removal and detection and can be downloaded for free at sites such as download.com.

2. Identity Theft

Identity theft occurs when a criminal uses anoher person's personal information to take on that person's identity.There have variety of methods that hackers can steal your information through the PC. Once this information is gained, it will be used to make online purchases using your credit card data, divert paychecks and create false documents. Usually, the top internet security software comes with some protection against this problem. An internet security suite may be your best bet to protect youronline information. The quick tips to protect yourself against online ID theft is never provide your credit card info to any site that does not offer multiple forms of internet security to protect your transaction.

3. Spam Mail

Spam by e-mail is a type of spam that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousand ( or millions ) of recipients. Spam mail itself is not dangerous. However, it can have malicious links that can do everything from cause your PC to be infected by a virus, introduce spyware, and attract more spam. A good internet spam filter is usually a good option. The auick internet security tip is when typing your address into the net, try to use a combination of 13 letters and numbers. This will make it difficult for address to be added spam mail list.

4. Phishing Mail

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is normally carried out by e-mail or instant messaging an it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost similar to the real one. The scammers will then use this personal information for their own purposes, or sell the information to other criminal parties. The best way to avoid phishing attacks is not to click any e-mails that you believe to be suspicious. Besides that, you may also update your web browser with phishing detection. Internet security software package such as Webroot's Spysweeper and ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite have great phishing detection systems.

5. Virus

Computer virus is a self-replicating or self-reproducing program that are designed to spread from one computer to another computer and to interfere with computer operation. Virus are one of several types of malicious software or malware. A basic rule is that computer virus cannot directly damage hardware, but only software. Viruses are most easily spread by attachments in e-mail messages or instant messaging messages. Viruses can be disguised as attachment of funny images, greeting cards, or audio and video files. Besides that, viruses also can spread through downloads on the the internet.

References :

http://e-marketplacesite.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

http://ect6.blogspot.com/2009_02_08_archive.html

http://techcruser.blogspot.com/2007/05/online-security-threats-to-your-pc.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware

http://discoverecommerce.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

http://www.buysafe.com/security_center/security_glossary.html

Identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay

Revenue model can be defined as the technique or method that is adopted by the e-commerce company in generating the business revenue from its website.Basically, there are five types of revenue model which are stated as below:

(1) Sales revenue - Revenue generated by selling of goods, services, and merchandise information provided in the publisher's website.

(2) Transaction fee - Commission earned by the company based on either the volume of successful transaction or fixed fee per transaction successful conducted.

(3) Advertising fee - Fee that is charged by the web publisher company to advertiser, by letting the space in publisher's website to advertise the product in different form of advertisement.

(4) Subscription fee - The users have to pay a fixed amount of fees for subscription of contents or services provided by the website.

(5) Affiliate fee - Fee that earned by the company for referring customers to other websites.


Now we will identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay respectively.


-Google-



Google is the most widely-used web search engine in the world. There are thousands million of internet users all around the world search information via Google search engine everyday. Besides that, it also provides a variety of free of charge internet services such as Blogger (web log), Google Mail (electronic mail) and etc.

Google does not charge any fee on the internet services that it provided for example Gmail, G-talk, but how does it gain huge profit every year? In fact, its revenue model mainly from advertising fee related to its internet services. This consists of about 99 percent of overall revenue. Besides that, Google also earns revenues from sale of its advertising-free version of the internet services. The advertising fees of Google mainly consist of Google Adwords and Google Adsense.

Google Adwords is the main revenue source of Google. It offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both banner ads and text. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising means that the advertisers need to pay to Google every time the advertisement received a click. The advertisement is designed to appear beside the search result pages of the Google seach engine in text form. It allows the advertisers to present advertisements to users when the users are searching for information related to what the advertisers have to offer.

Google Adsense is another advertising method adopted by Google. The difference of it is that the website owners (including blogs) can display Google advertisements on their websites and they are able to earn the revenue with Google every time the ads are clicked by visitors while Google Adwords only appear in Google website and the ads-clicked only earned by Google. Website owners of Google Adsense service have the opportunity to display the ads in their websites in various forms such as text, image and video. These ads can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-impressions basis. However, all the Google Adsense ads are administered by Google.

Google Product Search ( or formerly known as Froogle) is a price comparison service that makes the users easier in searching information and comparing for online product sale. There is a misunderstanding that Google has earned revenue by charging any fees for listings, payment for products to show up or commission on sale. In fact, Google does not do so, but it only earns revenue by Google Adwords to be displayed in Product Search results adjacent to the unpaid results. Currently, Google has started the testing on a new advertising programme called Cost-Per-Action, which is based on cost-per-click model. It differs from Adsense in the way that a site owner can only get the pay whenever a visitor clicks on an ad and conducts a specific action, such as purchasing a product from the advertiser.



-Amazon.com-



Amazon.com is a marketplace where allows sellers to offer their good alongside Amazon's offerings. A website can use a combination of revenue models to generate revenue. Amazon.com is a prime example of the e-commerce model or e-tailing. Amazon generates revenue primarily by selling books, videos, electronics, and kitchen equipment on domestic and international website, such as Amazon Marketplace. However, Amazon is also a pioneer in affiliate partnership marketing. An Amazon partner website can display Amazon books ( and review etc.) directly on their website, and sends customers to the Amazon's website when the visitor is ready to buy it. In turn, Amazon pays a commission for the sale to the site owner.

An e-commerce model is the most well known revenue stream where the website sells products or services online. Every e-commerce entity on the internet should have a business model that performs on the internet.

E-Tailing (electronic retailing) is the selling of retail goods on the internet. E-tailing is synonymous with business-to-consumer (B2C) transaction.Besides sale of goods, Amazon.com also generates revenue through sale of web services, for example Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3), Amazon Elastic Compute (EC2) and etc. Amazon S3 is an online storage web service that provides unlimited storage through a simple web services interface. Amazon EC2 is a commercial web service that allows customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.
Advertising fee is also one of the revenue sources for Amazon.com. It offers a suite of advertising channels for advertisers including online products ads, online display advertising, and Clickriver ads, which ads promote services alongside with Amazon's products.



-eBay-


eBay is an online aution and shopping website. It provides an electronic marketplace for people to buy amd sell various merchandise and servise worldwide. It has millions of transactions listed, bought and sold daily, the items sold including collectibes, decor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, vehicles and others. It has set up localized websites in about thirty countries including Malaysia.

EBay generates revenue by of various fees nand commissions such as insertion fees, promotional fees and final value fees. To start with, eBay charged an insertion fees based on the openning price of the merchandise.

-Insertion fees ~ when an item listed on eBay, this nonrefundable fee is charged.

-Promotional fees ~ an extra fee that charged for additional listing options which can enhance the advertising and promotion of an item, such as highlighted or bold listings.

-Final value fees ~ the commissions that charged to the seller at the end of the auction.Besides that, eBay earns transaction fee from owning paypal, an online paying service system for users to buy items online more conveniently. Ebay also gains sales from the service of listing customer's product to be sold to other users as well as some advertisement fee. Ebay's revenue increases with seller surplus. Its liquidity promotes a lock in, which keeping current customers happy and acquires new customers.

In conclusion, Google, Amazon.com and eBay have proved that every e-commerce comany would adopt different method of revenue models in its own way. Google relies mostly on advertising fees and small portion of sales. Amazon.com gains mostly on sale of products and services and relatively small amount in advertising and transaction fees while eBay mainly on transaction fees.






References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adsense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Marketplace
http://en.wikipedia.ord/wiki/Ebay

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

An example of failure in e-commerce is Pets.com. Pets.com attempted to sell pet accessories and supplies directly to the customer over the web

Pets.com was launched in November 1998 by Greg McLemore. Then it was purchased by a venture capitalist firm in early 1999. Amazon.com backed Pets.com raised $82.5 millions in an IPO funds in February 2000. However, Pets.com was gone into liquidation in November 6, 2000.

Lack of experience in management and poorly constitute business plan led to downfall of Pets.com. Company has raised multimillion-dollar in just advertisement fees. Besides that, the CEO and management department had little or no experience in running the business. Moreover, because the company had to undercharge for shipping costs to attract customers, it actually was loosing money on every shipment it made.

Furthermore, the information of Pets.com was insufficient. Customer just can view the photo of the pets but cannot touch the pet by themselves via internet. This makes them loss confident to trust on the quality and healthy condition of the pet. If customer really wants buy the pet or the accessories for pet, Pets.com was never able to give customer confirm days the pet can deliver, a customer had to wait a few days to actually get the pet or accessories for pet.

It is very important to know the demand and needs of customer as to satisfy customer service to the customer but Pets.com fail to do this; this causes Pets.com failure in e-commerce.

After see the failure of e-commerce, we must do a lot of strategic planning before implementing e-commerce.

Reference:
http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html?tag=feat.2

The history and evolution of E-commerce

In the beginning, the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. Telegraph (demonstrated in 1884) spread with railroads in the mid 1800’s then Transatlantic Cables from 1857 to 1866. Until very recently, only computer people had computers started to change in the 1980’s and paradigm shift in 1995 – the World Wide Web (www). The history of this cast improving system is how information technology has transformed business processes into how it is today.

In order to prove that the best paradigm would be shopping, which I am sure is a popular method for relaxing notwithstanding women or men and could be done anytime, anywhere, even in your pyjamas! Now this brings us back to the invention of the very old notion of ‘buy and sell’ electricity, cables, computers, modems and the internet of course! Started in 1991, it was made possible to do shopping online and since then, hundreds and thousands of business started to venture into this promising approach - the E-commerce.

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK. Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979 by Michael Aldrichand during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

We can’t run away from sites like Amazon.com and Ebay when talking about e-commerce. They are one of the first few internet companies to allow electronic transactions and succeed. Nowadays, the 5 largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers are Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics.

Lastly, e-commerce is a history of a new, virtual world which is evolving according to the customers’ advantage. The evolution of this will never end. As long as technology breaths in the air, it will continue improving for the better. E-commerce has come a long way, evolving from organizations billboards to a fully functional personalized shopping experience. Although the road was bumpy from 1994-2004, it has now become a crucial part of Internet pioneers and technology innovators.


In conclusion, e-commerce today is still at its infancy. Invisible shopping carts, annoyance-free assistance and no lines at the register and many more benefits awaits the future of e-commerce. There is a bright future for it. Besides narrowcasting, there are also services like new quantum processors that will increase the speed of computers twice as fast and HDTV’s popularity allows us to surf and shop on their television sets.






Here are the summary of years and trends for the evolution of e-commerce...



* 1984- Electronic Data Interchange or EDI was standardized through ASCX12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

* 1992- Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

* 1994- Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the internet and a safe online transaction technology called as Secure Sockets Layer.

* 1995- Amazon and Ebay were the 1st international companies that implemented electronic transactions.


* 1998- DSL,or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time and money to online.


* 1999- Retail spending over the internet reaches $20billion according to the Business.com


* 2000- The US government exended the moratorium on internet taxes until at least 2005.






References:

http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html

http://www.ecommercedevelopment-web.com/ecommerce-blog/62-history-of-e-commerce.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

Amazon.com Incorporated is an American e-commerce company located in Seattle, Washington. Amazon was a company that sells goods through internet. Amazon.com nowadays is very successful because there are many types of product are selling in Amazon.com such as books, computer’s accessories, sports tools and even jewellery also sell in Amazon.com. Besides there is a box writing search is for customer to find a specific goods faster and conveniently.

By the way, Amazon.com know all the customer profile after the customer fill the register form but there is without invading customer privacy. In other words, Amazon.com also will suggest books and products that might interest the customers based on the purchasing behavior of customer so the customers will never get a bunch of junk mail from Amazon.com that is out of topic. It is a form of permission marketing that greatly respects the customer and their privacy.

Amazon.com differentiates itself by making sure that is offers the same quality of products as any other company with noticeably lower price. In additional, customers do not have to pay sales taxes when they purchase in Amazon.com. After customers click the goods they want they just pay the cost of the product and shipping cost by amazon.com saving credit card then the goods will deliver to customer’s house.

In fact, Amazon has build up trust because there always deliver order on time to their customers. Amazon always make improvement to increase the company’s stocking and shipping capabilities and reduced the time it took to fill customer’s order. Lastly is there are also some of the goods will have discount, so that customer will buy it.

In conclusion, Amazon are very successful today is because oh its straightforward web design and friendly interface, and most important is the unique shopping experience. Therefore, Amazon is able to develop an extremely loyal customer base.

Self-introduction of Eric Hung Shen Wei

Hi there! First of all, I would like to thanks all my friends for spending their precious time visit this blog especially the ones who is reading right now. My name is Hung Shen Wei a.k.a Eric. I'm 2+ years old ordinary guy from Malaysia smallest state located at North of Malaysia. My hobbies are jogging, playing basketball, daydreaming, and the list goes on and on...*LAME* I know but that was 'then' ... Now, after I found out about the internet, my hobbies are reading blogs, chatting with friends, surfing the net, playing online game...Hmm..now it's sound slightly more interesting, doesn't it?

The top 5 websites that I visited the most and why I visited are:

1. http://www.hotmail.com/ - It's my 1st email client. I've been using hotmail service since 30 April 2000 although i do have other email client such as yahoo and gmail.

2. http://www.utar.edu.my/ - Honestly speaking, I don't like this website but i've no other alternative since i'm UTARian. It's a must for all UTARian to check this website for any announcement, upcoming events, student news, etc but i think the most important things at the moment is the timetable, student bill, past year examination paper, semester final examination result.

3. http://www.facebook.com/ - Undeniably,this is the most popular website in Malaysia after the fallen of Friendster.com reign (I guess). As the follower of the current trend, I can't avoid myself to visit this website that enable me to keep in touch with my friends.

4. http://www.thestar.com.my/ - Gosh! Seriously, I can't believe that this website is one of the most visited. Well, since i'm away from my home and i can't afford myself to buy newspaper everyday. The only way for me to update myself with daily updated news in the cheapest way is through this website. Haha..! I'm very smart,right?

5. http://www.wikipedia.org/ - This is a very useful 'web-encyclopedia'; Although it received lots of criticism, saying the information was unreliable, over the years it has improved and the most important is I don't need to any amount to access this website for comprehensive written information compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. In other word, it's FREE~!!! (Haha..! I like everything that is free. OMG! I'm so ...)

My top 5 Internet activities are

1. Chatting via msn - Believe it or not! I can't live without it. It's become a norm for me to online everyday to chat with my friends.

2. Youtubing - Haha..! Youtubing mean i'm watching youtube. It's a free way to watch movie or listen to music.

3. Downloading - OMG! Hung Shen Wei do something that is illegal. Somebody please don't call police to catch him. Downloading is illegal but it's fun because it's free and you can get whatever you want from music, movie, software, games, tv series, etc.

4. Playing online game - Thanks to my UTAR friends for introduce me to DOTA. Now, i'm addicted to it. I play this stupid violence game almost everyday. That's why i so stupid. T.T

5. Reading blogs or online newspaper - To kill my spare time faster while improve my English standard is through reading blogs and online newspaper although it's ain't good for my eyes.

That's all from me. Arigatou gozaimasu and mata aimashou!

P/S: Hope my team can get good result for this subject~! E-Commerce, I love you! Please let me get good result~!!!! I not greedy. Never aim for A, B+ will do~! Hahaha...!

Me, me and the only me..

Logeswary was the name given officially in the birth certificate. As we all know human, always prefer a shorter name. Therefore, I was called Loges ever since my kindergarten days. The other part of my life, my family and relatives recognize me as Banu. Whereby, some of them do not even know my official name. I was a Pahang born baby but rose up in Negeri Sembilan.

My education life has a lot of diversification; I started with a co-ed primary school then went to a single sex secondary school. Then I did my Diploma in a Government university and now my Bachelor in a private university, UTAR. Therefore, I would say, I tasted most of the system of education in Malaysia. Well, I would say every place taught me different lesson made me a stronger person and a better person.

There is say about do not judge a book by its cover it is a good say. Most of my friends used to say, when the first time they look at my face I used to have that fierce look.
Some even worse scenario, they said they feel like vomit out blood. OMG that is the most horrible thing I have heard in my life. Later, they take back their words. Once you are a friend 0f mine, then you would know me well. Can ask around if you want to, I do not like to boost around.

My free times, I will usually pamper myself with a cup of tea and a nice program on TV (I put it in a better way that I am a cough potato). If were in a better mood, I would love to cook. Some of my friends love my cooking, although sometimes there is some up and down. Still I have a fan for it. Thank you LLKT.

The websites that I visit the most would be the:
http://www.facebook.com/ – This page ensures me to keep updated about my friends, since all of us are part from each other. This is the sole tool make us feel together.

http://www.thestar.com.my/ – This would be the first thing I browse in the morning, as I had the habit of reading newspaper with coffee. Since I do not buy one everyday, I use the online service.

http://www.utar.edu.my-/UTAR website is the officially webpage I used to check my results and everything else related matter to studies.

http://www.google.com-/ The first website that strikes to my mind when there is an assignment is this page. In order to make my life easier, I would actually find most of the material on this page.

http://www.tamilforce.com/ – For me keep updated with Indian Film Industry, this is the page. I can watch free online movies and keep updated about the latest gossips.

About Me, Alex Phoon

My name is Phoon Kian Hong @ Alex undertaking Entrepreneurship course in UTAR at Sungai Long branch and this year is my final year. I just started to join this group in September 2008. I still don't much about this tutorial group.

The top 5 website I visited most are

Firstly is http://www.syzw.cn/ which is a website to reading and writing novel. I log in this website is to write my novel and read other authors novel. This website can help me earn my bonus income.

Secondly is http://www.facebook.com/ almost every day I will surf this website. This website provided the service of let people know each other between different countries. This website is playing as a role to help us having good society between human being. Lastly this website also provides many mini games let people who log in to play.

Thirdly is http://www.google.com/ I use this website the most is gathering the information or the resource to help me get new knowledge. When there I need some important information I will go toward this website to find information. There are very convenient because there is nothing we can’t find in this website.

Fourthly is http://www.jbtalks.cc/ .this website is a forum for me to have chatting wit my friends and also discussion about any thing in our life. Here is also a good place for us to sharing our problem and experience

Lastly is http://www.51wan.com/ is a game website for me to relax my life from stress of the study.

My top 5 internet activities are log in http://www.syzw.cn/modules/article/bookcase.php to write my novel to sharing with my readers, chatting with friends, surfing internet, watching movie and downloading.

About Me, Chong Siew Shin

My name is Chong Siew Shin. I am taking Entrepreneurship course in UTAR at Sungai Long branch. This year is my last year, hope that I can graduate without any barrier. I do not like to study, but it is my responsibility to finish study of this course. When I am free, I will prefer playing games such as Dota, watching dramas and listen music than reading.

The top 5 website I visited most are

1. http://www.hotmail.com/, usually I log in to this website to check mail. Sometimes there are many interest advertisements that people forward to me. Through this website I can also know many important things happen in nowadays world.


2. http://www.facebook.com/ almost every day I will surf this website. This website provided the service of let people know each other between different countries. Beside that we can see the photos of our friend. Lastly this website also provides many mini games let people who log in to play. Pet society is the game that most popular in our class.


3. http://www.google.com/ I use this website the most is when assignment is distributed. I use this website for information searching. When I need some important information only will surf this website to find information. There are very convenient because there is nothing we can’t find in this website.


4. http://www.blogspot.com/ when something happening in my life then I will record down in this website or what I see I also will record down. My own blog is http://www.siewshin0201.blogspot.com/ who is interest can log in and have a look, there is nothing special.


5. http://www.utar.edu.my/. Honestly I few log in to this website, just use to check result and timetable only. An additional nowadays is go in this website and print student bill.
   
   Once I access to internet, I will first sign in to my msn messenger. It is a best messenger that let us to communicate with friends. Moreover, we also can discuss and online chatting at here. Sometimes, I will play online game. Besides sometimes I will download song from website. Lastly is I will watch drama through online.