Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Nowadays, many corporate and business are using the efficient and effective services which provided by internet to introduce and running their business. One of the most popular tools that the corporate will use is corporate weblog. The purpose of the organization using weblog is mainly to reach their organization al goals. Corporate blogs can separate in two types which is the internet blog and external blog.

Internal blog is the weblog that provide to the employee and workers. Through the internal blog provide by the corporate, it will encourage the employee to participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of an organization and a sense of community.

On the other hands, an external blog is a publicly available weblog where organization employees, spokespersons to share their views or comments. It is often use by the corporate to update or announce new products, services, latest promotion, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. Through blogging, it will allow a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press release. Corporate will try to accomplish similar goals or comment which state in the blog. Corporate blog can collect many valuable information from public or global readers about the feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services, etc. Besides that, corporate can interact with a target market on a personal level while building link credibility that can tied back to the corporate web site.

Advantages of the Corporate Blog :-

1. Ease of publishing – the content of corporate blog and corporate website can be a big different. A blog can allow us to bring information and the latest news of the corpaorate to the public much faster and upadated than traditional website. Public will more interesting to understand and checking the latest information through corporate blog rather than websites.

2. Cost of making and maintaining is lower – To develop a corporate website, it need many graphic designers, usability experts, and it will cost much longer time and high cost. In contrast, blog can structure and restructure the corporate information in many different ways with the lower maintaining cost.

3. Community Building – There are a main different between blog and a “normal” website.Blogs will provide the ability to build a community and to interact with your reader more easily. People can interact with the organization each other through comments and out-of-the-box widgets of the blog.

4. A sense of forgiveness and tolerance – Anything published on a corporate website need to be more careful and must confirm don’t have any error before published it. It is because errors are often taken seriously by those who read. In contrast, as blogs have grown out of the personal sphere, blogs will have more an air of tolerance, of forgiveness.
Disadvantages of the Corporate Blog :-

1. Time consuming activity – Blogging is the time consuming activity, it need to keeping the content fresh and updated. The company need to spend more time to always renew it.

2. Legal and privacy concern – Some of the competitor or some reader who always like to make trouble on other people will purposely leave a bad comment and or bad suggestion on the blog to try to destroy the goodwill of the corporate.


others sources:
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/how_to_launch_a_corp.php
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3547411

E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

E-learning is an essential for network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. It is a type of Technology supported education or learning which using the internet or an intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM to deliver the content. E-learning applications and processes includes web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration. E-learning was first called "Internet-Based training" then "Web-Based Training".

Universiti Teknologu Malaysia (Technological University of Malaysia) is the oldest public engineering and technology university in Malaysia. Before this, in year (1904-1941) it was named as Technical School , in year (1942-1945) was named as Shihan Gakko, in year (1955-1971) was named as Technical College, in year (1971-1975) was named as Institut Teknologi Kebangsaan. After having a long times journey, finally the university was completed and became Universiti teknologi Malaya (UTM) on the 1st of April 1975. UTM main campus was in Skudai, Johor and the branch campuses was in Kuala Lumpur. UTM provide various types of education program, and focus in technical studies, with separate faculties for Education, Pure Sciences, Management, and HRD. The major source of graduate engineers and similar professionals are come from UTM. Since year 1990, the number of foreign students which from Asian countries, Middle East, and Africa, has been increasing. Most of the UTM graduates have involved themselves on many academic and professional institutions across the world. UTM vision is to be a worlds class university by the year of 2010.

On the other hands, UTM was providing e-Learning for the studies. E-learning in UTM can be defined as “the application of ICT to advance the effectiveness of the learning process” (UTM, 2005). By using this system, course content, lecture notes, communication tools, quizzes, tests and assignments can be accessed through the university computer network.

The pros of E-learning
1. No time and far distance spent to travelling to campus – Students of the university came from the whole state and whole country of Malaysia, the campus are very far for some student to come and attend class. Besides, some students need to work so they don’t have much time to spend to go campus study. With the e-learning, student no need spent many time and travel long distance to go campus but can study through access the university network easily and efficietly.

2. All Student is 100 treated fair and equal – By learning through the web, our work will stand merit alone, and we not be treated differently based upon race, sex, creed, sexual orientation, religion and disability.

3. Additional benefits of learning through E-learning – Study by using e-learning can provide students learning new technologies and practicing the use of the internet, office software and having more knowledge in IT than other face to face lecture’s student.

The cons of E-learning
1. Lack of face-to face interaction – By study using e-learning, student and lecturer seldom meet each other. This happen especially in self-paced course. So it was difficult in developing the relationship with classmate.

2. Expensive study’s equipments are requite – By study through internet, student need to spent a large amount to buy the personal laptop or pc, licensed office software and internet online. It will increased the financial burden of the parent.

3. Self-motivated and disciplined are important – Without face to face interaction, student must be more self-motivated and disciplined to progress through their program in a timely manner. If not, student will getting more and more lazy and get worse on their studies.


Further sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universiti_Teknologi_Malaysia
http://www.elearners.com/resources/elearning-faq5.asp
http://eprints.utm.my/5948/1/e_Learning_Implementation_in_Malaysian_Universities_The_UTM_Experience.pdf

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

Electronic Government is a diffused neologism used to refer to the use of the information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses and other arms of government.

For benefits of e-government, please click below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government#Benefits

Current applications of e-government in Malaysia:

Employees Provident Fund Malaysia: http://www.kwsp.gov.my/index.php?lang=en

One of the government departments which is providing e-government services is EPF Malaysia. EPF Malaysia has been upgrading it services from traditional brick and mortar channel to online services and intends to move away from the traditional brick and mortar business to strengthen its efficiency. To make the services convenient for citizens, to be an effective and efficient corporate, we have to move away from just opening more branches and extending the operating hours. The advancement of technology nowadays is enabled us to look at providing the means for citizens to access the services provided “anywhere, anytime, and anyhow”.
EPF has increased its online services to offer an alternative channel for citizen to conduct their EPF transactions. This will help to ease the queues at counters and also allow who visit the service counters a speedier rate of service. The online services will enable citizen to access information at their convenience.
Thus in certain aspects, citizens are empowered to monitor what is happening to their EPF savings as often as they want. Online services will reduce or eliminate the need for anyone to use his precious time to visit service counters, endure the traffic and spend time and money on parking or public transport. People who only need to do simple enquiries such as checking the balance of their EPF savings or withdrawal application status will appreciate this online services.
Online services will greatly benefit not only to those who come to the service counters but also those who are not free or too busy to visit the service counters. Online services also enable customer service personnel to provide efficient and quality service.
Besides, citizens will able to better save their time by downloading and printing EPF forms online as well as their statements when they wish.


Ways to encourage more citizens to use e-government application:












a) Enhance the awareness of public about E-government. Government may enhance the awareness of citizen through mass communication such as newspaper, TV advertisement and radio to build up the awareness of citizen.

b) The benefits of using E-services get to know to the public. Educate citizens about e-government. Enhance the usage of online transactions by telling the benefits of using e-government services, but, the security issues must be educated.

c) Assurance of services and qualities provided. Government could grant the services provided are always at high level of satisfaction.

Review a local e-commerce site

Mudah.my : http://www.mudah.my/
One of the local e-commerce websites in Malaysia is Mudah.my. Mudah.my is a Malaysian marketplace for buying and selling online. The philosophy behind this site lies in its name, which is convenient. Consumers can conveniently buy and sell on Mudah.my anytime and anywhere. People can easily buy and sell through this website where its product category include property, car, mobile phone, computer, clothes, or just anything else. With mudah.my, we can buy and sell basically everything and find cars for sale, houses for sale, mobile phones for sale, and computers for sale in our region conveniently.

Descriptions of mudah.my:

a) Electronic catalog: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=9_s&th=1
mudah.my using electronic catalog to promote and advertise their wide range of products and services. Electronic catalog consist of a product database, directory and search capabilities, and a presentation function. They are the backbone of most e-commerce sales sites.

b) Search engine: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=9_s&cg=3020
It is a computer program that used to access databases of Internet resources, search for specific information of keywords, and report the result.

c) Site design and layout of mudah.my: http://www.mudah.my/
The design and layout of mudah.my are simple, efficient and attractive. It can be easily seen by users and not complicated.

d) Customer service: http://www.mudah.my/support.htm?ca=9_sca=9_s
From here, users can find use few ways to contact the personnel of mudah.my. Within the customer service’s site, users can find answers to the most frequently asked questions and some of the general information regarding mudah.my.

e) Navigation and others: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=8_s&th=1
Links are provided for ease to use, viewers can scroll down to the bottom of the webpage and look for the link which they’re interested in.

f) Customization: Customization of products and services in mudah’s site. The classifications for products to sale and products wanted are separately assigned in different web page.

g) Banner advertising: http://www2.mudah.my/support/form/0?ca=9_s&id=14
Mudah.my is offering the space for those who wanted to advertise their products or brand with low charge.

Electronic Currency

Major E-micropayment Vendors
The various commercial e-micropayment technologies are similar in many respects but differ in others.

• Firstgate Internet
Firstgate works with about 3,000 providers of articles, information, games, and other content and has 2.5 million customers, mostly in Europe. For security, Firstgate uses passwords and secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption and also records the IP addresses of buyers' machines for reference in case problems occur. The company charges content providers an up-front fee—which varies based on the complexity of the project—for set-up, integration, and consulting. Firstgate then tailors its systems with business rules for each participating merchant. The company bills buyers' credit cards, debit cards, or phone accounts, once they have accrued a few dollars in charges. North American customers can buy material via a charge to their bank accounts. Firstgate aggregates consumer micropurchases across merchants to enable a single processing of multiple transactions, explained Chief Operating Officer Ed Burrell. "This reduces processing costs, per-purchase credit card fees, and administration," he explained. Firstgate then remits money to merchants via checks or bank transfers.

• PayLoadz
PayLoadz works with about 1,000 merchants and generates about $3 million per year in revenue, explained founder and lead developer Shannon Sofield. Rather than having prepaid accounts with PayLoadz, users pay sellers directly through PayPal, which also verifies that the buyers have enough money in their accounts to make the purchase. Merchants pay PayLoadz a flat monthly fee based on their sales levels, rather than a percentage of each transaction. PayLoadz delivers files via a secure server to the customer using PayPal's Instant Payment Notification system, which lets vendors integrate PayPal with their back-end operations. Buyers never see a PayLoadz interface. The PayLoadz system consists of an application server that hosts the Web site and handles transaction processing, a file storage and delivery server, and a database server. Separating the components into servers tuned for specific roles improves performance and reliability, Sofield said. For security, PayLoadz uses SSL with 128-bit RC4 encryption.

• Paystone Technologies
Customers in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Europe can access Web content after setting up prepaid Paystone accounts by mailing funds directly to the company using their bank's bill payment service or by depositing cash at any Bank of America branch. Merchants that sell content via Paystone create links to the e-micropayment system. Customers follow the links, enter their Paystone password, and are redirected back to the content they want to purchase. For security, Paystone uses 128-bit SSL encryption.

• Peppercoin
Massachusetts Institute of Technology cryptography expert Ron Rivest and fellow MIT computer scientist Silvio Micali founded Peppercoin. Buyers at participating Web sites who want to use Peppercoin see the e-micropayment technology's interface, which looks like a common credit card interface, noted Bob Nix, the company's vice president of engineering. The application's new version, Peppercoin 2.0, doesn't require pre-enrollment or predeposit of funds. Consumers just enter their credit or debit card information with the merchant online as usual, and Peppercoin processes the transaction. The company uses RSA BSAFE software to provide encryption and digital signing capabilities for the security of a buyer's information and the transaction's integrity. Digital signatures can authenticate a message's sender's identity and verify that no one has altered the original content. To reduce overhead on small transactions, Peppercoin uses an online self-service customer-service module.

Macrochallenges for E-micropayments

E-micropayment technology faces a number of obstacles to success. For example, said the University of Minnesota's Odlyzko, although e-micropayment technologies may be reliable, they run on the Internet, PCs, and browsers, which are not always dependable.

• Economic factors

E-micropayment products deal in very small transactions and thus potentially yield low profit margins, noted PayLoadz's Sofield. Therefore, it may not prove to be economical for many companies to invest in and distribute the expensive e-commerce systems only to get thin profits dependent on high transaction volumes that might not materialize. Also, Odlyzko said, content providers eventually may find that they can economically and successfully sell small items bundled into larger packages on their own, thereby eliminating the need for third-party e-micropayment technology.

• Insufficient demand

Perhaps the key marketplace challenge for e-micropayment vendors is making content providers aware of their applications and selling them on the idea that their services are effective and worth paying for. Currently, said Strategy Analytics' Patel, many merchants are not interested in using e-micropayment technology until they see one or two products prove themselves over time as being reliable and attractive to buyers. Also, digital content is scattered all over the Internet. There are relatively few sites where potential buyers can see large amounts of digital content grouped together. This makes it less convenient to buy the material, thereby reducing the number of online micropurchases and thus the demand for e-micropayment software.

Credit card debt: Causes and Prevention

Nowadays, credit card is playing an important role in people life especially to those who live in the city. With the flexibility and convenient provide by the credit card, it seems to be very common to use in our daily expense. For those people who owning a credit card, he or she must be very careful by spending with credit card and must be able to pay off the balance each month. As we know that many individuals are owe too much debt and the increase of the bankruptcy risk is due to the over-used of credit card.

The causes of people go into Credit card debts are:-


1. low income but high expenses
This is most probably happens on household. If the monthly expenditures are more than income, then the family was forced to use their credit cards for utility and groceries expenses. This obviously led to increase on debt.


2. Saving little
Nowadays, youngest generations are least saving their money in bank. They spend almost 80% of their salary on clothing, food and beverage, car and electronic product. With the lack of the saving, sometime people will don’t have the enough money and liquidity of cash to purchase things. It will cause them to relay and pay by credit card. Finally they will over-use of credit card and fall into credit card debt.


3. Poor money management
Financial planning such as monthly expenditure budget is very important to guide us become a rational consumer and keep away from having more debt. But unluckily, most of the people spend whatever they have earned or by credit card without planning. People are also lack of knowledge in manage their income and allocate their spending that finally lead them having a burden of credit card debt.
4. Gamble
Many people put on their disposable income on gambling. Some of them are borrow money or used credit card to gamble. As you can see, there is a huge of people in the Casino everyday. They try to put their money on their luck. It’s take high risk. Once they lose their money in the casino, it will cause financial problem. That’s why a lot of people go into credit cards debt.

5. Social pressure
Nowadays many people around us are wearing or using branded thing, it will more or less giving us some pressures. With this pressure, we will try and try to follow other people for having branded things. But with the limited salary that we earned, we will finally relay and using credit card to purchase the expensive branded goods. This will also over-use the credit card and increase our debt.

6. Spend based on your interest, preferences or emotion.
Some of the people will spend the money based on their interest or preferences; they don’t care about the price. Besides, some of the people will spend money based on their mood. For example, when they are upset they will try to let off by buying things without think of how much they need to pay for those things. It is irrational behavior.



To work your way to debt-free living, prevent for the credit card debt need to be treated serious. By taking control of your finances, you are taking control of your life, and making it better than ever. So, to make life easy and lesser burden, here are some ways and steps that can prevent for falling into credit card debt:-

1. Establish a monthly spending budget and then follow that budget exactly. - This mean that we can only spend by using credit card for the certain transaction payment and with the amount payment that already include in our monthly spending budget. So, we cannot simply think or tempted to buy a LCD TV by using credit card which doesn’t include in the budget.

2. Carry or owe a credit card balance for not more than six months. - This is because the compounding of simple interest will produce a very expensive balance to pay it off if the balances owned more than 6 month.

3. Pay double the minimum payment – If you can afford, try to pay double the minimum payment. It is because the minimum payment normally just enough to cover the interest and little of the principal debt balance. Paying extra will settle the debt more quickly.

4. Own a low interest credit card if your credit card’s interest rate is excessive – Banks credit cards are very competitive among each other. Different bank will promote different kind of plans or strategies to encourage people to spending with their bank’s credit card. If we are currently holding an excessive interest rate credit card, rationally we should replace it by using another bank’s credit card that which have a low interest.

5. Cut up with other additional credit card and holding one card for emergencies– By holding more than one credit card, it will make u always tempted to spend especially some luxury things and something that not necessary. To control the debt, we should cut up with additional cards that seldom use and if possible just remain one credit card for normal spending and emergencies.
In conclusion, spent smart, spent wisely to make life easy.


For more information, please click below:
http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/5-simple-credit-card-debt-rules-1267.php
http://www.moneyinstructor.com/creditcards.asp

The Application of Prepaid Cash Card for Consumer.

Prepaid cash cards are used to help the users to control their spending. Prepaid cash card is a reloadable debit card that allows users to only spend up to the amount they have pre-deposited into the account. If a person would like to control their spending then a pre-paid cash card could be a good card for him and it can prevent the users from the risk of heavy debt or bankruptcy.

Benefits of pre-paid cash card:

* Spending independence: Users can use pre-paid cash cards just like regular debit/credit card at any card acceptable merchant locations. Users get the independence they deserve with the built-in spending controls of a pre-paid cash card.

* Convenience: Pre-paid cash cards can be used conveniently in urban area whenever Visa/MasterCard or Touch ‘n Go is accepted at stores, petrol station, restaurants, convenient stores and in the shopping malls. The card can also be used to access cash at ATMs.

* Budgeting: Users can figure out in advance how they will spend it, spending can be controlled by how much money is loaded. In addition, pre-paid cash cards provide a simpler way to keep track of money versus carrying cash.

* Safer than cash: pre-paid cash cards users are protected from unauthorized transactions if the card is lost or stolen. Cards can be replaced easily if lost or stolen.

* Be a good financial planner: pre-paid cash cards can help users to learn to manage their financial and have a better money management skill. Users can monitor the balance and can also review the transaction history in detail.

* Security: The card can be charged only up to the amount of the pre-loaded cash, the thieves cannot make an excessive charge using the pre-paid cash card.

Examples of Pre-paid Cash Card:

Malaysia's Touch ‘nGo:

http://www.touchngo.com.my/WhatTNG.html
Touch ‘nGo is an electronic purse used by Malaysian and it’s firstly established to be used at all highways in Malaysia, major transports in Klang Valley and selected parking sites. However, nowadays Touch ‘nGo can be seen at major convenient stores for small purchase transactions.

The major benefits of a Touch ‘nGo card are as follows:
- One card for all toll, parking (etc: KLIA, KLCC, Bangsar Shopping Mall, 1 utama,.. ), public transport (etc: Rapid KL buses, KL monorail, Ampang line, Kelana Jaya line, KTM komuter)and theme park (Bukit Merah Lake town Resort).
- Dedicated lanes for touch ‘nGo card holders.
- No need to prepare for exact change.
- No need to wait for the queue and wait for the attendant to give you the small change.
- No fumbling for cash at the gate of toll.
- Fast and convenient. Can reload or top-up almost everywhere. Can be used with smart-tag
For more information, please click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_

Hong Kong’s Octopus Card:

http://www.oc/topuscards.com/consumer/en/index.jsp

Octopus card is widely used in Hong Kong for transactions on public transport, convenience stores, fast food shops, supermarkets, cake shops, vending machines, school and parking. Octopus card works like the Touch ‘nGo card in Malaysia whereby the system will deduct the amount automatically. Each Octopus card has a built-in microchip containing an electronic purse and other application which can accurately record the holders’ every transaction details. Users simply hold their Octopus card over the reader, and the correct amount will be deducted automatically.

BeiJing’s Yikatong :

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Yikatong:card.html

Yikatong is a store-value contactless smart card used in Beijing, China, for public transportation and related uses. Yikatong means “one card pass” in Chinese. It is similar to Hong Kong’s Octopus card, or the Singapore’s EZ-Link.