Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tools for Companies

With the recent global financil crisis breaking up worlds economy, many organization are finding ways or even new approaches to gain customers trust by positioning strong product or service brands into customer's mindset. Apart from the conventional way of attracting customer through million dollars of marketing and advertising either by tv advertisement or newspaper. Organization has moved upstream with the trend of "blogging", it used to be a tools for a person to express personal thoughts but now organizations too have take alternatives in distinguishing itself from other competitor by "corporate blogging".

Blogs is known as entries contribution of an author which posted on a regular basis, these author are commonly known as bloggers. Corporate higher management such as directors, managers seem to own a blogs nowadays, but their focus derive around corporates issue. These corporate blogs are contributed by a few author or maybe more.

Content in the blogs are usually promoting or discuss a new products and services, which encourage viewer to be able to give comment, besides, employees may too be able to provide detail information of a particular product or service being introduced. Some may argue corporate blogs may be biased in distributing the right information but nevertheless it has been a very popular tools in communicating directly with customer.

On the contrary, organization which owns a blog are able to reached out to a broader market compared to other forms of marketing, apart from trying to sell anything an organization also seem more "humane" or friendlier to approach by customer or viewer.

But after all the above statement, is corporate blogging is really that useful or beneficial towards an organization??

Adressing the issue above, benefits of corporate blogging can be identify is the following:-

• Create Transparency

Corporate blogging enable organization to communication with customer by providing comment space for feedback. It creates transparency as to which the form of communication are being delivered in a more casual way rather than a sale person trying to push a products or services. It allows transparency in a certain extend.

• Instant Feedback & Communication

Communication has made easy through chatbox and leaving down comments after each post. Blogger can response to any comment instantly besides, it is the best of handling any complaints or critism as prompt action can be taken to minimise customers dissatisfaction.

• Linkage to other Blogs

As corporate wants to stay at customer top priority list of blogs more visited, frequent post entries ensures corporate blogs are maintained in the top search engines when a person search anything related to the organization or issue addressed by it. Moreover, other blogger will linked corporate blogs in their own blogs expanding wide coverage of customer which might be difficult for organization to do so in advertising alone.

• Less Costly

Corporate blogs are known to save cost as it do not need much resources only active author to post up entries and computers. Organization which has effectively carried out this form of communication tools has realised the potential of utilising it. Besides, its proved to be less costly by maining only one blogs which able to reach wide coverage of target market.

15 Most Popular Corporate Blogs (Technorati ranked) – May 2008
#15. Boeing – Authority: 67
#14. Monster – Authority: 73
#13. Kodak – Authority: 105
#12. Delta – Authority: 252
#11. Yahoo! – Authority: 297
#10. General Motors – Authority: 364
#9. Ask – Authority: 364
#8. LinkedIn – Authority: 591
#7. Digg – Authority: 641
#6. Dell – Authority: 799
#5. Yahoo! Search – Authority: 1130
#4. Facebook – Authority: 1478
#3. Flickr – Authority: 1744
#2. Adobe – Authority: 1797
#1. Google – Authority: 8492

Source: New PR Wiki, http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/top-15-corporate-blogs-ranked-may-2008/

Legal

In today’s modern era of electronic technology, many people want to get their work done faster without much effort. At times, people forget or do not consider the legal and ethical values of their procedures. Therefore it is important for us to have a glance at what is legal in e-commerce. Legal issue in e-commerce is law that is enacted by the government and developed through common law. Laws are mainly strict, legal rules, and governing the act within their jurisdiction. In contrast, ethics are referred as a branch of philosophy that deals with what is right and wrong. Therefore for those companies that is using e-commerce as a medium to conduct business has to adhere to all the legal or ethical issues. Non compliance of this ethical issue can damage the company’s reputation and in worst case it may lead to loss of business.

E- Commerce is also popular not only for doing business but people also use the internet for shopping and banking purposes. Therefore many people do not realized that by using internet their private information may leak to unauthorized party. For example an individual who wish to shop online may just visit a particular website, click on the item that they wish to buy, drag it to the shopping cart and enter their credit card detail. However, this information has to pass through few hands before their transaction can be process. Therefore, websites should provide the customers with choices regarding the use of their personal information, and incorporate security procedures to limit access to customer information by unauthorized parties. Moreover websites should also provide customers with the choice of how much information that they wish to disclose. Beside privacy copy right has also become an important legal issue in e-commerce. For those music industries who do not wish their songs to be copied without proper permission they may enable exploitation of music samples and audio format. Where else software that is available on the internet for free of cost can be transfer without permission from the right holder. For example Napster, MP3 providers and many more.

Tips for avoiding e-Commerce Consumer Fraud

Check unusual “Ship To” Addresses – be aware for request to send merchandise as a gift to an unknown address because thieves often use this trick to ship the product to another destination whereby they can pick up the product without being notice by others.

Identify Big Spenders – excessive fees are paid by thieves to ship product quickly. This thieves are also know to be big ticket purchases whereby they will use stolen card, receive the merchandise and resell it at higher price to make a huge profit out of the sale.

Secure Payment Gateways - Securing your payment gateway is referring to the “behind the scenes” transfer of personal information between your transactions pages (the page where the order is placed), the merchant account (your bank) and the credit card company. This is one of the most important components requires the acceptance of credit cards for your e-Commerce business. In order to protect their client and have a secure gateway it is important to have credit card processing services which can be expensive but no e-Commerce business can actually operate without it.

In my opinion there are many ways to secure an online transaction. It all depends on the business operators whether they are willing to spend a little more in order to provide a secure online transaction to their customers.

References

http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/ECommerce_-_Legal_and_Ethical_Issues

http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v4i49_nasir.html

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

The internet is a very powerful communication tool in trade. The business transactions conducted through the internet for example such as e-commerce is a faster and more efficient because traders can reduce operational cost as well as transaction and delivery time. E-government is a form of e-commerce where the “service provider” is e-government and the “clients” are the citizens and the private operators. The implementation of e-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)

The best four directions that it could go for its implementation is:

• Securing APEC-wide commitment
  
• Enhancing Government IT infrastructure and implementing proper IT
  Management practices
  
• Enhancing training and culture management
  
• Implementing e-Government projects

E-government is being used as a tool for better government. The implementations so far in Malaysia are:

• Electronic Labor Exchange (elx), the domain is http://www.elx.gov.my/
• Project Monitoring System (PMS)
• Electronic Services Directory (eservices)
• E-syariah
• Electronic Procurement (eP) project
• Human Resource Management Information System(HRMIS)
• Electronic filing of income tax return
• Voter information
• SMS alert on e-gov services
• Online renewal of driving license

The benefits of implementing e-government are:

• Improves efficiency since the use f information technology enables improvement in mass processing tasks and public administration operations.
  
• Generate saving in on data collection and transmission
  
• Help to achieve specific outcomes
  
• Create a better communication between government and citizens
  

E-government Malaysia is now at ranked at 25th out of 32 countries in terms of e-government usage growth. In addition, a survey done by the market information group has proved that e-government usage has increased into 15% in 2003 compared to 12% in year 2002. In my opinion, even though the e-government has spread well and use by many organizations for their purpose but still there is low percentage of usage rate among the citizens in Malaysia. These could be due to less usage of internet application among the nations especially in the not developed area such as Sabah and Sarawak. Another possible reason that it is hardly applied by organizations is the difficulties of automating manual office systems while also facing the same challenges on online security and system integration which all other economies are wrestling with now.

However, the problems faced with e-government implementation are:

• Concern more on security if doing transactions over the internet and thus resulted in low usage of e-government services.
  
• Most of them are not aware of it yet
  
• Also because of language barrier. Most of them still prefer Malay Language.

http://www.intanbk.intan.my/psimr/articles/Article1%20-%20Full.pdf
http://www.apec.org/apec/documents_reports/senior_officials_meetings/2002.MedialibDownload.v1.html?url=/etc/medialib/apec_media_library/downloads/som/mtg/2002/word.Par.0083.File.v1.1

A discussion on E-Learning offered in Malaysia universities: Pros and Cons from the student perspective

The advanced technologies nowadays can bring everything to our homes, everything that we need to use daily, such as books, clothes, news and even foods and "knowledge". We can learning at home, at any places, as long as there can online. That is what i want to discuss --Electronic Learning or Networked Learning. Electronic Learning (E-Learning) is a term for all types of technology-enchanced learning (TEL), where techonlogy is used to support the learning process. Often the medium of instruction is through computer technology, particularly involving digital technologies. E-Learning has been defined as pedagogy empowered by digital technology. (Wikipedia)

E-Learning has become more and more convenient and popular in Malaysia. Almost every universities in Malaysia has the E-Learning service. E-Learning has shown its great advantages through its accessibility to all student irrespective of their residence. E-Classes help students to communicate with their tutors and lecturers, get information regarding their subjects and access teaching materials through E-Liabilies, for example UTAR has a web based learning environment (WBLE), which students can get the latest lecture notes and tutorial question from it.

From a student perspective, it is very useful and helpful, because we can save the time to print out the softcopies, we can read it as long as we have a computer and online service is provided. We can have the teaching materials for a whole semester at one time instead of waiting for the hardcopies that photostated and distributed by our leader. The most interesting thing is we not need to attend the classes in the particular university or college which our courses are taking from. We can save a lot of money since we not need to pay the transportation fees, accommodation fees and the daily fees. We can save the high study fees as well.

E-Learning also provided student time flexibility, you can download the teaching materials whenever you want, or when you can online. It is not a matter and nobody will punish you because of attend the class without lecturer notes. A student can send his query at any time when he can get access to the internet. So, because of these, E-Learning is very popular among students that living in the developing countries.

However, everything has its good and bad sides, E-Learning as well. The cons of E-Learning obviously is the non-motivated or laziness of a student. Lack of face-to-face communication between a teacher and a student will lead to misunderstanding, it is because a teacer might not understand what the student need and interest for. Besides that, a student will be too free since nobody can control him and he can simply be lazy and demotivated. It might result a low scope of the student's knowledge. Hence, the final result might not so encouraging.

For some student who living in rural areas, such as Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia. The places might not have the onlie service and those students even do not have a computer and do not know how to use computer, E-Learning becomes an unreasonable service to them, so it is unfair to the student who living in the rural areas.

Reference:

1.) http://www.articlealley.com/article_78603_45.html

2.)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_learning

Mobile Payment System in Malaysia: Its Potential & Consumer Adoption Strategies

Mobile Payment System

Vast changing pace of technologies has drastically alter how business operate and how service are being provided. Adoption of technologies has made transaction convenient to consumer. Adapting to the continuous innovation of technologies has create competitive advantages to organization which adopts it.

There is various types of payment system in Malaysia, one of the current and newly introduced system is Mobile Payment system. Mobile Payment are simply defined as payment which is made over mobile devices. Malaysia first introduced mobile payment was in 2001 with the name "TeleMoney", was being managed by System@Work company.

Collaborated with Hong Leong Bank facilitating on settlement of payment and handling payment service in Malaysia. In order to use this service, the only requirement needed was GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) and an active account with TeleMoney which consist personal identification verification. Any user which has GSM mobile phone and credit card or debit card are eligible to use this form of service.

Besides, System@Work are working with few companies such as Celcom to expand the field of mobile payment which will replace conventional method of settling payment.

In 2009, Maxis has launched NFC (Near Field Communication) in Malaysia, with this new technology enables consumer to make purchases convenient by using mobile phones. FastTap service is newly introduced using NFC embedded into mobile phones for instances Nokia.

Its Potential in Malaysian Market

BNM (Bank Negara Malaysia) foresee the potential of venturing into mobile payment as the new industry, survey shows more than 80% of Malaysian population is subscribed to phone services. Technologies embedded into mobile phones has brought it into the next level apart from the conventional way of only performing voice communications now mobile phones can take picture as well as surfing the Internet. People tend to adopt to this feature easily and it creates an opportunity of business in mobile payment.

On the other hand, another reason of potential is survey conducted by BNM has shown 97% of sample being surveyed has a bank account which bring means to the availability of encouraging bank user to adopt mobile payment as its convenient and less costly to perform.

High percentage of mobile phone subscriber and bank account user provide ideal platform of starting or introducing mobile payment to consumer as their personal payment system.

Consumer Adoption Strategies

Mobile payment has yet to achieve wide acceptance of its service which may due to several factor. BNM stated only 1.8% of the whole Malaysia population of 25 million are currently utilising this service. In order to encourage user to adopt mobile payment there is several ways which may need to prioritize.

The need to collaborate with industry player in area such as common payment messaging format, authentification and securities. Through ensuring having common payment format it enables consumer and merchant to perform transaction easily and less hassle. This involves more cost effective and convenient which draws larger target group to use this service. Consumer will want service and login in which requires less rigidity but at the same time they are ensured their personal information are well protected.

On the contrary, organization must look into the needs of consumer payment preference. Where consumer expectation of service being received plays huge impact on how consumer preceived the system to be efficiency in providing what it has claimed to give or merely an alternative of types of payment.

Therefore its important to educate consumer of mobile payment and features in in it which consumer can fully utilise to the full extend. It involves creating awareness of the existance in market. On the other hand, its also crucial to ensure that consumer felt save when using mobile payment system by increasing their confident level towards performing transaction through mobile phones.

Credit Card Debt: Causes and Prevention

Credit card debt is a burgeoning problem to all. Debt is all around us and getting worse every day. The fact is that through credit card debt is expensive to fund with high interest rate and that there is nearly always some form of credit-usage fee in our account statement. For your information, debt is divided into two groups which are good debt and bad debt. Good debt is such as buying an item like a house or mortgage that will increase in value and followed by bad debt such as 50 “flat screen television you bought on your credit card and are paying the minimum balance on.

The causes of Credit Card Debt
Fact of life
It is that credit card holders do not know how to spend wisely. In other words they would have budget prepared in their life for spending.

“Because they are paying me to do it” policy.
Most of us would put our credit card debt into one debt because the credit card issuer is paying you to do it!! A true fact is that nowadays the credit card company has now become competitive that issuers are fighting among themselves to get sign up to their card.

To Entertain
They are certain people who would use credit card for their entertainment purpose such as clubbing, shopping and holidays. These type of expenses is considered to be unnecessary expenses that should be avoided.

Furthermore, prevention has to be done to avoid credit card debt.
Do not spend more than you actually need.
Money has to spend when necessities only and not for luxurious. Besides that, all the money that you save will get rid of the debt.

Settle down payment in either one of the two ways
a) Take the account with the smallest balance and pay it down first. Try to double the payment due but if that is not possible yet, pay as much extra month that you can afford by achieving the goal of paying the smallest account first, you will become more motivated to continue on your quest.
b) Alternatively, take the account with the largest annual percentage rate and work your plan of attack on this bill first. Again, try to double the payment or at least pay as much extra as you can.

Follow the Plan
Keep following the plan until all credit cards have been paid off. Do not use those accounts again to keep the balances at zero.

Extra Effort
Extra Once your bill is paid off, take that some payment you had been making and apply it towards your next credit card. This extra amount, along with the minimum payment due, will really begin to take a chunk off that balance.

http://www.gobalakrishnan.com/malaysia-credit-card-debt-solution/
http://www.streetdirectory.net.my/travel_guide/149697/credit_cards/6_simple_tips_for_credit_card_debt_help.html
http://www.moneyinstructor.com/art/creditconsolidate.asp

E-Tailing

During those days people tend to shop for goods traditionally from one shop to another. However due to the advancement in technology selling and buying of goods and services can be done over the internet by just a simple click. Those who conduct electronic business online are known as electronic tailers. Electronic markets are the institution that allocates all the resources needed by the demanding parties. Trading over the internet are know to be free trading whereby there is no external planning, selection and decision are made freely, and offers are evaluate based on the individual needs. Furthermore electronic market can be seen as form that connects two substantial infrastructures of our information technology. This mature telemetric form has realized the electronic market whereby they contain supply and demand in the form of virtual information objects which are available equally for seller and buyer all over the world. Furthermore, an electronic market also provides affordable services over the internet. Some of these services include product rating (from magazines test reports or rating agencies), interactive product demonstration (software demonstration program), ordering products from an electronic catalogs and many more.

There are five out of eleven most important electronic market models in retailing. The first model is E-shop. This model mainly focuses on promoting the company goods or services and also the possibly to order and pay, electronically also traditionally. Furthermore there are several benefits provided such as lower prices offered, better information, convenience of selecting, buying and delivering and 24 hours availability. The second model is E-procurement. This model is applied by big company that provide wider choices for supplier that provide better quality of goods, lower cost, and many more. Third is E-auction whereby auction is done on the internet accompanied by multimedia presentation of the goods. Furthermore, it also benefits the supplier and buyers whereby it increases efficiency since no physical movement of goods is needed until the deal is establish. Fourth is E-mall. E-mall is a collection of e-shops with well know brand. Normally it is enriched with guaranteed payment method such as www.emb.ch that gives entry to e-shops. Moreover e-malls reduce complexity and cost to be on the web with sophisticated hosting facilities such as additional traffic generated from other e-malls. The last but not least is third party market place that is suitable for companies that wish to leave the Web marketing. This model works when the third party has something in common and offers at least a user interface to the supplier catalogues such as additional features like branding, payment, logistic and many more.

The internet does not only being used to trade online but also to provide specific services such as the online travel. The online travel provide satisfaction to their customers whereby they can book their ticket online without visiting the travels company and also book hotel rooms in advance. The internet service has made many of the customers to be independent whereby they can take greater control over their traveling plans and also compare prices to evaluate which travels company is offering the best price. For example Air Asia is providing these online services in their specially created website. The internet has left a great impact on the travel industry since the travel industry has to change the way they do business from brick and mortar to online business model. By using the internet the travel industry is providing a new service called the 'dynamic packaging' where consumers put together their own holiday packages by purchasing their flight, hotel, or car rentals separately. In conclusion the internet has change the way business is carried out from traditional to modern way of doing business. However the traditional way is still important as certain consumer prefer face to face meeting before any decision or buying or selling is made.

References:

http://www.electronicmarkets.org/issues/volume-5/volume-5-issue-1/v5n1_schmid0.pdf
http://www.electronicmarkets.org/issues/volume-8/volume-8-issue-2/businessmodels0.pdf
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/63-018-x/2006001/4072207-eng.htm

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

A cash card is a pre-paid debit card that enables the holders to make purchases and have them deducted from the card's available balance. (Defination from Creditor Web). While, others defination of pre-paid card is a payment card such as MasterCard, Maestro, Visa Electron and Amex, pre loaded with your own money, which you can then use wherever the payment card is accepted, including in the internet and on board.

Pre-paid cash card has become more and more important nowadays, since it is convenient, easy to get and easy to carry. When you are using the public transportation daily or even you have your own car, in order to pass the thousand and thousand tolls around Kuala Lumpur, pre-paid card such as touch n Go is a smart choice, it save your time to pay the tolls instead of giving money, sometimes you do not have small change, and same as the toll fees collector, it is quite inconvenient, paying fees by money also waste your time as you need to queue, sometimes the long queue will make you crazy, so using touch n Go somehow is a smart choice.

Some example of Pre-paid cash card: Oyster Card in London, England

The picture showed us that, the British use the pre paid cash card to pay the public transportation fees, Oyster cars is similar with touch n Go in our country, is a travelcard that can be used as a tram pass or annual "bus ticket". The main function of pre-paid cash card is using it when you are taking a public transport, there are many countries in the world have this kind of card such as Octopus in Hong Kong, Ezlink card in Singapore to name a few.

Besides that, a pre-paid cash card such as debit card, can be used to buy the goods you want and pay the bill. You can pay insurance, rental fees, electricity bills and water bills and car payment by using the debit card. UTAR and Public Bank also work together, in order to let UTARian can pay their study fees by using the PB Debit card in UTAR campus by charging RM1 service charge. If you pay the study fees by using bank draft, it had a service charge which costs RM5 and RM2.50 service charge by using online paying (go to any PB branch to pay the student fees). So, having a pre-paid cash card is more cost saving and convenient.

Along with these, you can withdraw money anytime as long as there is a ATM Machine, pre-paid cash card provide this kind of application as well. But, it will cost you a higher service charge. Some of the pre-paid cash cards provide you the service by sending and receiving money via bank wire transfer, between two cards. It is very useful and accepted by most of us since it is fast and easy.

In Malaysia, touch n Go can be used to pay the parking fees in some selected place such as 1-Utama shopping complex, Sungei Wang Plaza, Cyberjaya, KLIA, LCCT and so on. It lead Malaysia to a ticketless packing century, and it is an environmental friendly service. Since, it is ticketless, we can save the paper, save the trees and save our earth. Theme park entrance fees can be paid by a pre-paid cash card too such as Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort, it is the one and only theme park in Malaysia which we can pay the entrance fees by using touch n Go.

Touch n Go -The most popular Pre-paid cash card in Malaysia

Some uniqueness of pre-paid cash card in overseas:

Octopus card is a pre-paid cash card that designed for both tranpost and non-transport purposes. You can use the Octopus card in Hong Kong very many usages. It is a multi-usage card which can pay any fees and buy the products, and it can even be the access card to some selected place such as school.

Ezlink card that designed by Singaporean is a useful pre-paid cash card as well. There are numerous reloading points around and a wide range of channels, that you can top up your pre-paid card easily. You can reload the card in every LRT, MRT stations in Singapore, ATM machine too. Ezlink card has provided a auto top up service that card holders need to earn reward from the respective issuing banks for utilising auto top up, so that card holder always has the sufficient money in the card to travel.

Reference:

1.) http://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/

2.)http://www.what-prepaid-card.co.uk

3.)www.touchngo.com.my

4.)www.hong-kong-travel.org/Octopus.asp

5.)www.ezlink.com.sg

Phishing

Phishing is defined as means of getting private information from user of a particular website by faking authentic website of reputable organizations.

It usually obtain access when it send emails to user and required them to update personal information such as bank accounts, passwords, credit card number, and etc just to name a few. By imitating those reputable organization such as renowed banks, insurance company and etc which usually need user to filled their personal information.

Phishing does this by mimicking other organization;s HTML code, leading to creating mirror website of the organization. Even one is fully equiped with IT knowledge, it cannot ensure that user can detect authenticfication of the website as their are lack of knowledge regarding Phishing.

Recently cases of citizen being lured into withdrawing money to third party account is being reported. The victim received email from reputable bank requested updating of personal information due to inactivation for a period of time. Unexpectedly victim Tey did not suspect anything amiss due to the similarity between the scam website and the reputable bank website.

Following the requested order, he insert all relevant information but realised his account money was being siphoned when bank's management informed him.

Sources from Thestaronline.

In the below, image is example of Phishing used in luring user.

As shown in the image above, link which is being circled will direct user to mirror website of CitiBank, information will be directed to scammer website instead of CitiBank. User being ignorant will only lead to money being forked out of their accounts where it will be too late when they realise.


Being organization that targeted by the phishing issue, Maybank has provided some tips on how to recognize a phishing site which have the conditions as below,

• phone call/email or sms that asking for personal security information


• email link will usually is a unsecure login site which url begin with http where secured login site url should begin with https


• phishing url usually may contain misspelled words compared to the orginal name

Besides, there are several tips to minimize the phishing threat too

• never trust any phone call


• if wanna update personal information, go directly to the company website rather than clicking on directed link


• do not trust random URL or fill in personal information on random website

The Threat of Online Security:How safe is our data?

Due to the reducing rate of security in e-commerce business, many business operators are considering to use back the traditional way to carry out their business. There are many threat and attacks that are worrying most of the e-commerce operators such as client threat, communication channel threat, server threat (such as Web server, Data Based server), Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and many more. However the top five threat that are spreading fast in today’s e-commerce industry are hacking into other computer system, Infection by viruses and other malicious software, staff misuse of information system, theft or fraud involving computer last but not least failure and data corruption.

Out of the five threats infection of viruses and other malicious software shows the highest rate followed by hacking into other computer system. The most recent virus attack on Microsoft Outlook is (The NIMDA, Code Red Worms, the ILOVEU,” Resume” and KAK viruses)In the case of hacking, due to the low security detection and prevention of the website, hackers hack into other business site to obtain confidential information on customers such as their credit card balances and so on.

The Target: The attackers mostly target on the shoppers, shopper’s computer, Network Connection between shoppers and website server and Website Server.

Shoppers: Involve tricking the shopper (also know as social engineering techniques) by reading the shoppers behavior and getting info to be used against the shoppers.

Shoppers Computer: By using a tool called SATAN to perform port scans on a computer that detect entry points in the machine.

Network Connection between shoppers and Website server: The attacker monitors the data between the shopper’s computer and the server. Then he collects data about the shopper or steals personnel information such as credit card number.

Website Server: the attacker analyzes the site to find what kind of software is being use on the site. Then he proceeds to find out what patches are being issued in order to exploit a system without using the patches.

Prevention Steps: Many steps can be taken to prevent the attacker to continuously gain confidential information by hacking into other individual business site. The prevention steps are such as:

Education: The shoppers need to be aware that by using weak pass word it will able the attacker to hack in the computer system to possess all the confidential information.

Personal firewall: Help reduce the various type of traffic initiated and directed to your computer. The intruder can scan the hard drive to detect any stored password.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL): Is a protocol that encrypts data between the shopper’s computer and the site server. Furthermore, a certificate authority authorized by the government will issue SSL certificate that will be issue to the server. When the shopper’s make a request using a browser to the site server using http://..., the particular shopper browser will check whether it has a certificate it can recognized. If it is not recognized it will pop up a warning signal.

Server Firewall: It helps to ensure that request from specified ports only can enter the system and all access are only from certain physical machines.

Password: Pass word should be strong enough so that it cannot be easily guessed. Account lock out capability helps to make sure that an automated schemes cannot make more than few guesses before the account is actually locked.

For Malaysia Company such as Locus they develop and create dynamics transactional web and flow system that is incorporated will all the security needed to transact business online safely. With the expertise and advance technology they posses it enable them to do business online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year without any disruption. From my point of view, prevention and detection from online threat is a must. Business operators must pay more attention on this issue or else they will loose their customer trust if shopper information is leak to an unauthorized party. More expertise should be employed in order to prevent the problem from getting worse.

References:

http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2002.994190
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0504_mckegney/0504_mckegney.html

http://www.locus.com.my/ecommerce.asp

How to Safeguard our Personal and Financial data

It is very common nowadays that most of us are would be having thousand of questionnaires on mind that how safe would be our personal and financial information on online websites. Therefore, information related to these had to be notified by all the users of online systems as we live in increasingly online world.

Here are some guidelines for you on keeping our information secured.

Only purchase on trusted sites
When you are dealing online and requiring payment, you are advised to avoid dealing with unknown or small retailers because they might have unsecured payment systems. Be smart, always deal with well known online retailers such as Amazon.com, e-bay or deal with only reputable payment processors such as Pay Pal or Google Checkout.
Order your credit card report
Credit Card Report is the window into your ID security. Please be noted that or alert that you must have an evidence of the payment you made through online system. Print the supporting evidence once payment was made. For example, once we UTAR students have made payment through online, it is advisable that we print out the reference number as a proof of the payment.
Know how to spot Phishing
Phishing is a duplicate of the site you are viewing into. They are the thieves that get your personal information by pretending to be the site you trust. To be safe, when you log in to these accounts, make sure you are not being asked for any information that you easily do not encounter previously when you enter the account.
Secure Your Network
Network is the basic that have to be secured especially when your network is through wireless. Through wireless network you must make sure it is secured by password so that thieves could not access our information or grab it easily.
Set Banking Alerts
Nowadays, many financial information has began to offer email and SMS alert. Please make sure you do subscribe it to ensure that you receive the latest news from them. This would avoid or allow you to easily detect unauthorized access as soon as possible.
Be prepared earlier
As we uncertain events cannot be expected when it will occur. Therefore, it is wise that we always make sure that we safeguard any important documents in a hand copy also.


Additionally, most importantly make sure you use different passwords for different accounts that you access online. This is because when your password for one credit card is found, then it would not enable the intruders to find out or access to your other banking system.

Related links:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/online-safety.asp

http://www.instantestore.com/

http://www.finextra.com/fullpr.asp?id=278

A Review on a post on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

First of all, let me explain what is internet security and some of the types of it. Internet security is When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk… from wikipedia and Information traveling on the Internet usually takes a circuitous route through several intermediary computers to reach any destination computer… from www.ebtco.com, and when we talk about internet security, some of the examples are password, anti-virus software, anti-spam software, security packages for mobile malware (mobile malicious software) and so on. But, this blog I am focus on password.

As what the title is, for the purpose of writing this blog, I have viewed My E-Commerce blog and I am very interested with 1 post which is the “Favourite passwords used online”, I am very sure that, everyone of us knew what is the meaning of password, it is very important and is very “P&C”. I am also very sure, most of the passwords set by most of us actually is just our own birthday. Why I said so, because people around me are, and honestly, I even knew their passwords with their knowledge and they are well with that. Maybe after reading this blog, they will start to change their passwords…haha!

From the blog, I realised that, 16% of the people uses their children, spouse and even their own name as the passwords, 14% who likes to use “1234” or any “easy-remember” figures as password, 4% who uses “password” or “password1” as their “access” to some web pages. So, which categories are you? Luckily I am the 66% who is different with those people in these 3 categories.

In the blog, also showed us that some common passwords that used by people such as favourite cartoon name, “ihateyou” or “iloveyou” to name a few. Again, it is not my style, actually it is quite funny to use these kinds of password, because people who know you might get your password correct easily and log in to your “protected” web pages and a serious consequence might wait for you.

Password has become more and more inportant nowadays, since now we all are talking and caring about privacy, so why not change your password to a more secure manner, such as password that is longer than 8 characters, and is a combination of figures, alphabets or even using symbols and change the style you entering a password, for example your password is 1234, then you can enter 2 first and enter the rest no in sequence, and change the style often. So that people are not easy to realise your password. There are also some internet security method which can replace password such as Physiological Biometrics such as fingerprints, iris, hand or facial characteristics,Behavioral Biometrics for examples, voice scans or keystroke monitoring, and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). PKI is a public key encryption that using for securing e-payments.

Internet security has become a hot issue nowadys, it is very important to know it well and you will be saving, vice versa.

The Process of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure )










Some Examples for Physiological Biometrics













Fingerprint and Iris

Some Examples for Behavioral Biometrics



















References:

1.http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

2.http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Internet+security&ei=sJM8SsXIO8mJkQWW2qjBDg&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

3. Lecture notes- Lecture04 E-Commerce Security (Slide 14 & 15)

Example of dotcom Failure

Boo.com was launched in 1999, with appromimately $ 125 millions investment from Bernard Arnault and Benetton. The launching of Boo.com was delayed for 6 months giving reason technical problem which occurred in forming the company. This contributed to the factor which caused the fall of Boo.com.

Apart from that, $ 6 million was also invested into purchasing of fashion ware but due to delayed launching of the company which later on was put into wasted as those fashion ware purchased was founded to be outdated.

Another factor contributes to the fall of Boo.com are not user-friendly feature in the website. Boo.com implemented virtual sales assistant to aid customer is their shopping experience around Boo.com. Instead of providing customer with pleasant shopping experience it fails terribly , customer do not only felt frustrated but they are greeted with slow browsing and irritating technology. It causes Boo.com reputation to fall dramatically despite huge investment made in progress of launching the biggest fashion website on internet.

On the contrary, its poorly designed webpage and unfriendly usability also contributes to its failure. In the internet world, there is rule employed such as the "3 click" rules which states user can reach their designated webpage in not more than 3 click but Boo. com fail to identify this convenience instead its customer needed to go through 5 different graphic before continuing their shopping or browsing. Moreover, Boo.com also limits each customer to 3 transactions in every 20 minutes, it discourage customer to further shop at its website.

In addition, bad planning and marketing of Boo.com played a role in its downturn. Customer turning into internet shopping as they are attracted by cheaper price they're paying compared to retail shop which is also convenient, better prices and faster process. Boo.com did not fulfill any of the stated benefits instead their premium product was not offer any discount quoting value of product will diminished. Whereas, its management did not foresee long-term objective of improving its system. Investor rush into developing of its website and neglected the risk involved as Boo.com lacked the experience of "Brick & Mortar"

As there is no manager to monitor its expenses of constructing and maintaning the website, money was flowing out of the company more than expected. Example is the expenses of website maintenance alone cost 5000 pound monthly which burden its financial situation. Only after 6 months of operation where Boo.com manage to recruit CFO to manage its company. Besides, there is also question raised in the employees benefits and luxury spending which are said to attract and retain good employees. When Boo.com was at the edge of insolvency, its investor refused to invest more money to bail out Boo.com.

Coller, D 2008,The Most Famous Dot.com Failure
: Why Did Boo.com Fail as an E-tailer? What Lessons are there for Existing and Prospective E-tailers?, Accessed by 18th July 2009, Available from http://www.edigitalretail.com/Most_Famous_Dotcom_Failure.pdf

Further reading on the factor of Boo.com failure. click here

History and Evolution of E-commerce

What is e-commerce?

It is know as the process of conducting financial transaction electronically such as e-payment. For example Public Bank, provides e-payment services in their website. Users who wish to make payment to any individual or business sector may visit the website. Due to the success of e- commerce it is well know for shopping online on the World Wide Web. Users may shop online without visiting the shopping mall. EBay and Amazon.com are examples of online shopping that display many goods such as books, accessories, headphones and many more.

E- Commerce can be for business to business (B to B) or business to consumer (B to C). Besides conducting financial transaction over the internet electronically, e- commerce is also know for selling product and services over the internet. Over the years there has been an increase in e-commerce sales.


E-commerce’s History.

During those days, e-commerce is known as the process that executes commercial transactions electronically using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer. Using these leading technologies has opened the door for users to exchange business information and do electronic transaction. EDI and EFT was developed and introduce in the late 1970’s.

From that point, the internet started to develop and to become popular among the users in 1994. Even though there is an increase in the popularity, it took around four years to develop the security protocol (HTTP and DSL) that allows rapid access and consistent connection to the internet.


Evolution of E-commerce

Through out the years e-commerce industry has grown to be the multi billion industry. Let’s have a look at the table below to have a clearer picture on the evolution of e-commerce.

Year --------- Event

1984----EDI, or also known as electronic data interchange, was standardized using ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete any transactions with one another reliably.EDI is actually a strict formatted message that focuses on document other than monetary instrument. For example,message is sent by buyer to seller. The buyer may sent message to the supplier to request for purchase order, advise on the payment for good and any other related matters.

1992----Online retail products to its customers was introduced by CompuServe. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.For example like books,computer devices any many more. Due to advance in technology, user now may visit CompuServe website to purchase any good or services based on their preference.www.cs.com/

1994----Then a browser called Netscape is introduced.It provides people with a simple browser in order to surf the internet and a safe online transaction technology which is called Secure Sockets Layer. As time goes on, Netscape now has launched Netscape 6,Netscape 7,and Netscape Browser 8. On May 2007 Netscape Navigator will be named Netscape Navigator 9.Users of this browser may visit browser.netscape.com/ whereby it is the official site of the web that provides dowloads and other technical information.

1995----The founding father of e-commerce was launched : Amazon.com and eBay.com. Basicly,this two website has developed over the years and it provides various type of services such as selling books online, club and fitness item, clothing and many more.This allows user to shop online without making the effort to visit the shopping complex or warehouse.

1998----DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, and continous Internet service to subscribers across California. Later DSL started to expand its service through out the world whereby it allows high band width data to be transport. High band width data are like video,pictures and multimedia. This leads people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999----According to Business.com retail spending over the internet reaches $20billion.

2000----Until 2005 the U.S government has extended the moratorium on the Internet

E-commerce model.

Through the internet users are allowed to buy good and services online by comparing the prices and other features that is advertise by a particular company. Besides that, users who wish to purchase online tickets can do so by just visiting the airline website. The users just need to fill up the necessary particulars and purchase their ticket online. Air Asia is one of the airline companies in Malaysia that provide this service in their website. Moreover for those who love reading business magazine, Time.com is selling their magazine through this website. They allow user to purchase the issue by offering four free issues.



References :
http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/models.htm
http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/history-e-commerce2.htm

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

Example of Success

One example of the application of e-commerce in Malaysia would be the partnership formed by the Citibank and Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia(LHDNM).
Citibank was the first foreign bank in Malaysia who had launched Citi Connection e-Tax, an online payment system for the companies to settle their tax payments through online system.The access is allowable for the customers for 24 hours and 7 days (24/7). It is a total convenient and secured way for users to settle their tax payment to LHDNM. A form could be obtained via online from LHDNM webpage and settle the payment through Citibank, the web-enabled financial services portal.
According to Sanjeev Nanavati, Chief Executive Officer of Citibank Berhad told that these form of partnership is the basic platform for customers to directly pay their tax over 19 different tax payments via CitiConnect. It is also an easier way without hurdles to settle tax payments for the companies mainly.
Besides, Citibank has also considered the employees and therefore supported the employees on the their PCB tax payments. Employees or corporations could upload their PCB submission and initiate payment via a simple user interface. For Citibank,it was not a hard task as it was just the same as EPF-Contribution alliance which is currently available in Malaysia.
Last but not least, through this E-tax payment via online, it also has carved a shape into a leading paths in coordination with Bank Negara Malaysia’s strategy to promote greater adoption of and migration to more competent electronic payment modes. In line with it, in a ceremony, Yang Berbahagia Dato’ Hasmah Binti Abdullah, Chief Executive Officer of LHDNM, said “these partnership works as another level of success in the ever-continuing strategy between public and private sector.”

Causes
The causes of the success could be due to:

• Complete
  Payment through online could be in complete information provided to the customers and as detailed explanation to the customers on making payment through online.
• Simple
  Customers would be happily using it just because of the simplicity with the online payment. Even if it was first time for the user but still they can get used to it. This is mainly because of the simple instructions.
• Creation
  It is very easy to search information on these with the help of search engine friendly pages such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Flexible
  Easier to meet your need on the payment as you do not need to go to the LHDNM department to settle the payment and bring along a huge sum of cash. Besides, u could just make the payment wherever you are.
• Competitive
  Citibank has competitors therefore the formation partnership for e-tax payment could establish itself to others well and increase the number of customers perhaps.
• Acceptance
  Credit cards payment are widely accepted nowadays for the online payment in real time with or without your own merchant account. What you have to do is-just choose any of the 85 integrated payment gateways.
• Attractive
  It is well customized therefore it is attractive that could grab the attention of new users with its convenient and fastest way as solution to pay tax online.

Finally,before I conclude I would like to share my opinion, which is that e-commerce has developed far beyond our expectation.Therefore, more knowledge should be obtained regarding its success which opens a wider way for easier lifestyle.Big companies are mostly welcomed to subscribe the application of e-commerce for their daily business but at the same time it is advisable to also look through the danger site of it as there are many intruders,hackers,etc.

Related Links
http://www.theasianbanker.com/
http://www.thepaypers.com/
http://www.ecommerce-journal.com/

Google is changing everything with a real world case

There are many companies associated with ecommerce nowadays, but that is no one who can take the first place from Google which is primarily for its search engine. Obviously, Google has grown more faster than other ecommerce company and google is changing everything. I am sure you and my life have been changed by using google.

Google is trying to organize the world's information and combine all the information, make it universally. So that, everyone can get the information by fingertips. A good example is google reinvented the spreadsheet as a web based application, which is easily to understand by the users and they can share the data up to 10 users simultaneously. It makes our life easier and all the information are useful.

One of the real world examples is Kaiser Permanente, the largest nonprofit health maintenance organization(HMO) in US. The amount of available medical knowledge has increased doubles by every 7 years, so it is very important by updating the information in order to make sure that, Kaiser Permanente has provides good caregiving.

Because of the doctor's handwriting might be difficult to understand and some of the pharmaceutical product names are jargon. So, when Kaiser Permanente turned to Google Search Appliance, which enables this HMO to index more than 150000 documents across the network. Now, everybody can share the information all around the US and even the World, doctors and nurses are also using google search to get information which help them dignose and specify treatments, and also check for the effects by taking particular medication, they can consult clinical research studies as well.

It is very convenient by using Google Search Appliance, and it changes many people's life.

Goh's Information Corner

First of all, i would like to thank our respective lecturer Cik Farah and tutor Ms Esther Chin here on behalf of all my group member for giving us chance to do such a unique assignment. It's unique because assignments usually require us to write in a proper, formal report but for this assignment, we are required to engage into the blogging world which is trendy nowadays. Besides, i am glad to have my great assignment group members that can collaborate well with me and assist me throughout the assignment. I believe that we can complete this assignment with our best.

My name is Goh Zhi Shun, usually my fellow friends will call me Zhi Shun or Ah Goh and still waiting to reach the age of 21 now. I have been staying in Kajang for the past 10years until now. So, let me tell you guys something about Kajang here. Kajang is a town located nearby Sungai Long, it is just a 15minutes car journey from Sungai Long to Kajang.
View Larger Map Satay is a famous snack in Kajang and definitely is Halal, personally i prefer satay from a shop name " SATAY MALAYSIA " which located in the center of Kajang town and just near the only pedestrian bridge in Kajang town. Have a try on Kajang satay there and i sure you guys will have a great memories with the satay there.
Usually i will be spending my time in university or home. I like to watch live football match, play football,basketball and play games in laptop. Below are the top 5 websites that i visit most frequent in present and the reason of it:

1. http://www.livescore.com/ - checking on the updated football matches score
   
2. http://www.manutd.com/ - checking the news of Manchester United football club
3. http://www.google.com.my/ - searching information that i need for assignment (currently trying a new implemented search engine, http://www.bing.com/ )
4. wble.utar.edu.my - checking and downloading lecture notes, tutorial question and additional notes uploaded by lecturers.
5. http://www.hitz.fm/ - listening to the top english radio station, hitz fm, via internet

Nothing much to describe myself, i just a normal person staying in a normal life. The advancement in the technology has increased the usage of the internet. Nowadays, internet has been widely used in everywhere all around the world even secondary school student has started to use computer and internet in accomplishing their project. As for me, i have started to use the internet since 5 years ago when i was form 4 but until now i still not fully utilizing the internet services. Internet is just a tool for me to search for the information related to my studies and play online games. I always categorized myself as "out-dated" people as i am not fully using the internet services that available currently and just restricting to search information and play games.