Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Most of the organizations use corporate blog to sell and promote their products. It is because the corporate has a point of view that, advertisement and feedback from customers are the keys leading to successful business. Therefore corporate blogging is a useful tool for communicating the market needs to the companies.

Usually corporate blogs provide up-to-date and latest information about companies’ products, and are ready to handle FAQ of customers in the main area. Nowadays there are more and more companies becoming the new added members in corporate blogging. For instance, Coca-Cola Conversations, Kodak's A Thousand Words Blog, Delta Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Dell's Direct2Dell in Chinese and Spanish and etc. Corporate blogging brings both positive and negative impacts.

The advantages of corporate blogging:
1. Cost of advertisement can be reduced and helps the corporate to increase its profits or advantage in financial freedom indirectly.
2. Through the forum in the corporate blog, a company is able to respond to the customer feedback or know more about the customer needs and come out with the better services or products to fulfill their demands.

The disadvantages of corporate blogging:
1. Any unwilling consequences may occur if the company failed in concern or discuss the issue which is against the legislation.
2. Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake, or perhaps worse, it may reflect incompetence on the company’s management.

As a new marketing communication tool, the potentials of corporate blogging is unlimited if it is being used wisely. However, the companies may need to bear the risk or the unwilling consequences if corporate blogging misused.

Reference:

Wikipedia
TheNewpr
Direct2dell

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

What is 3rd party certification?

The 3rd party certification is a scientific process by which a product or service is reviewed by a reputable and unbiased 3rd party to verify that a set of criteria, claims or standard are being met. 3rd party certification enables commerce and condition of companies in telecommunication, finance, healthcare, life science, public sector and other industries provide a crucial layer of intelligence and security that protect data and deliver information safety program, which make users feel secured for their personal information such as ID, password, and credit card numbers to protect from phishing and spoofing attacks.

Certificate Authority (CA) is a trusted 3rd party in a public key security system. It’s responsible for vouchsafing the identity of users and issuing with certificates that bind the public key to their identities. In Malaysia, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd. and Verisign.com are licensed CA. As a CA, it provides digital certification service, including digital certificates, cryptographic product, and software development.

Whereas Verisign.com is the leading Secure Sockets Level (SSL) Certificate Authority (CA) which is a secure way of transferring information between two computers on the Internet using encryption and this enabling secure e-commerce and communication and interactions for Web sites, intranet, and extranet.

For example,
Maybank2U.com is certified by Verisign.com, which enable users to feel more secured in making online transactions through its internet banking services.

Another example of financial institute is Public e-bank.com. It has been certified by MSC Trustgate.com as to provide trusted and encryption technology that secure its online communication and protect users’ vital information from prying eyes. MSC Trustgate.com is the 1st Malaysian Internet trust solution company which is authorized to offer 128-bit SSL server ID. It also offers Digital ID for Mykad (Malaysian National Identity Card) that is used in online tax filing, e-procurement and others.

SSL have a variety of security measures:

• The client may use the certificate authority's (CA's) public key to validate the CA's digital signature on the server certificate. If the digital signature can be verified, the client accepts the server certificate as a valid certificate issued by a trusted CA.
  
• The client verifies that the issuing CA is on its list of trusted CAs.
  
• The client checks the server's certificate validity period. The authentication process stops if the current date and time fall outside of the validity period.
  
• Protection against a downgrade of the protocol to a previous (less secure) version or a weaker cipher suite.
  
• Numbering all the Application records with a sequence number, and using this sequence number in the message authentication codes (MACs).
  
• By using digital certificates users’ trust on online transaction can be increased. However users must be a smart when making any transaction via internet to avoid disclosure of customers’ confidential information. Finally with CA, the development of internet based activities can be
  stimulated.
  

Related links:
Maybank2u
Pbebank

A review on a post on Legal from My E-commerce blog

A review is based on “UK to get tough with illegal downloader” from My E-commerce blog. There are estimated around 6 million people are downloading files illegally in UK. These illegal downloading of music and movies are costing the industry to lose million of pounds in revenue every year.

In Malaysia, we face the same problem. The demand for digitized music is increasing among Malaysians due to growing broadband penetration and the larger storage capabilities of personal computers and music-playing handheld devices, such as cell phones and MP3 players. Unfortunately, much of the demand is being satisfied by illegal download websites.

The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) indicated that music sales were plummeting. The sales last year was only RM 87 mil compared with RM 200 mil about 10 years ago. It drops significantly because of illegal download. Nowadays, nobody wants to buy CDs anymore, not even pirated CDs. People prefer to download movies and songs directly from internet because they are free of charge. As time pass by, it might cause the entertainment industry to close down.

To against this illegal download of music and movies, the government is urged to create a new law to against the user of the internet to download music and movie. In Canada, for example, downloading copyright music from peer-to-peer networks is legal, but uploading those files is not. Additionally Canada has imposed fees on recording mediums like blank CDs and similar items. These levies are used to fund musicians and songwriters for revenues lost due to consumer copying. Canada has initially charged this tax on MP3 players, but a recent Supreme Court decision ruled that the law was written in such a way that these players were exempt from the tax.

UK government is working on a new law to have this illegal downloader's internet connection to be cut off. If you like to download illegal music or movies online, you may have to take note of this new development. Among the contents of the new proposed law are ISP who failed to enforce the rules could be prosecuted and details of customers suspected in illegal downloading can be made available to the courts.

Learn more on When Is Downloading Music on the Internet Illegal?

Here is a video and audio news on Why a clampdown on illegal downloading is needed.

Source from:
BBC News
The Star Online

Things to Take Note to Prevent E-auction Fraud When A Consumer Participating In An E-auction

E-Auction Fraud
Millions of people take part in Internet auctions everyday, bidding on items from around the world. Buyers and sellers both benefit from the great opportunities that e-auctions provide, but these auctions also give criminals the opportunity to perpetrate fraud.

How E-auctions Works
E-auctions work when prospective buyers examine the descriptions and photos of items and decide whether to place bids. The highest bidder wins. Upon winning, the buyer sends payment for the auction item, possibly to an online escrow service that holds payment until the buyer receives the goods.

How Auction Fraud Happens to Buyers
* Failure to deliver goods after the buyer purchases it.

* Misrepresentation of merchandise in an attempt to deceive the buyers concerning its true value.

* Hidden or separate charges such as fees for postage, handling, and shipping container.

* Fake bidding by seller in an attempt to drive up the price.

* Credit card fraud where seller uses the buyer's name and credit card number for fraudulent purposes.

* Black market goods such as stolen and reproduced goods.

Prevention of E-auction Fraud for Buyers
1. Learn how an e-auction runs, what your obligations are as a buyer, and what the seller's obligations are before placing a bid.

2. Find out what actions the web site/company takes if a problem occurs and consider insuring the transaction and shipment.

3. Investigate the seller as much as possible. Call the seller to see if the phone number is working, or send an email to see if the email address is active.

4. Examine the feedback rating on the seller.

5. Evaluate your payment options. Paying with credit card ensures the most protection if buyer can dispute the charges when the merchandise does not arrive or was misrepresented.

6. Consider using an escrow service if purchases on credit card are not disputable or the goods are not covered by insurance.

7. Examine whether escrow service is licensed and bonded.

8. Find out if shipping and delivery are included in the auction price or are additional costs so there are no unexpected costs.

9. Do not give out any personal information such as identification card number, driving license number, or bank account numbers to the seller to protect yourself from identity theft.

10. Most importantly, DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Be sure you understand what you’re bidding on, its relative value, the seller’s identity and return policies, and all terms and conditions of the sale.

With a better understanding concerning e-auction fraud and its prevention, buyers could keep these risks at a minimum when participating in an e-auction and enjoy the benefits of e-auction.

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

Implementation of E-government in Malaysia is initiated by Multimedia Super Corridoor (MSC) and also guided by Vision 2020. Basically, e-government is the use of multimedia technologies and telecommunication to ease the communication between government and other stakeholders such as citizens, employees and businesses.

In myGovernment Web site, it provides e-transaction center which allows people to enjoy online services and download various types of application e-forms. It also provides links to other e-government Web sites, for example Public Complaints Bureau. Moreover, citizens could voice out their opinions and provide feedbacks wisely through myGovernment instead of protesting in the public.

However, based on the polling result from myGovernment in 2005, there were 53.19% of citizens voted for “poor” myGorevnment public services portal. And, there was result showing that majority of citizens complaint about the problems of accessing to the services provided and lacking of internet access.
As compared to polling result in 2008, 27.66% of citizens voted for “good” services provided by myGovernment portal. In contrast, there are still 24.29% of citizens voted for “poor” e-services provided.

In a nutshell, the implementation of e-gorvernment and citizens' adoption in Malaysia are improving from years to years based on the myGovernment polling results.

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit card can be considered as plastic money which replaces the hazards of cash in making payments and purchasing transactions. Having this advantage, credit cards are now being misused by the consumers, and even causing bankruptcies.
According to a survey conducted by New Straits Times, 1,397 of credit card holders in 2004 and 1,497 credit card holders in 2005 were declared bankrupt, representing an increase of 34 per cent over the 1,117 credit card defaulters in 2002. The numbers of declared bankrupt keep on growing year by year and this unhealthy trend is becoming “worrying”.

The causes of debt may be due to:
1. Free application. Nowadays, credit card no longer holds by the rich or higher income status. The most attractive are free for application and excluded any annual fees and even free for life. It causes more people now are able to hold a credit card, such as students, operators or fresh graduates.

2. Poor financial management. Based on the survey conducted, a credit card holder who loss of financial control in using credit card may spend over 5 times of his/her monthly salary. The over spending cased the financial burden.

3. Credit card interest rates. Banking institution may charge higher interest on the debts. If a credit card holder is unable to pay the debts within a stipulated period, he/she will face a large number of debts when interest is included.

4. Misusing credit card. Among the credit card holders, most of them are using not only one credit card, with each credit card for a small amount. This is because they perceived that the small amount will not cause any consequences. In fact the sum of these small amounts is usually the financial killer.

Suggested preventions:
1. As a smart consumer, we should consider twice before applying for a credit card. Is that a need to apply or just blindly follow the trend? Especially those fresh graduates, they should weight their ability for repaying debts on a credit card.

2. For the card holders who always loss of financial control after using credit card, they should get a related education or concept regarding financial control and wisely plan their monthly budgets for expenses. Alternatively, they can also seek for financial consultation to solve their credit card debts problem.

3. Card holders should make sure they are able to pay the credit card statement on time and avoid any over spending which may lead to huge debts.

4. For card holders who hold more than a credit card, they should not bring along the cards when go for shopping, but only keep them as for emergency use. Bear in mind, only let a single credit card in active use; otherwise it may cause misusing of credit cards.

The Application of Prepaid Cash Card for Consumers

What is a prepaid cash card?

A prepaid cash card is similar to a credit card and debit card, which gives cardholders the ability to purchase products and services on-line and off-line. The greatest feature of prepaid cash cards is that they do not get cardholders into debt, as only transactions up to the balance preloaded onto the prepaid account will be authorized. Therefore, cardholders can only spend what have paid in. Most prepaid card providers enable cardholders to manage their accounts online or via an interactive Voice Response telephone service. This provides convenience to the cardholders so that they are always within easy reach of their balance.

How does it work?

First of all, load a prepaid cash card with an amount of money by cash at a bank, Post Office, bank transfer, or even by another credit card.

Prepaid cash cards work the same way as a credit card, which includes the 3 steps: swap, enter/sign and collect. When purchasing a cardholder needs to swap his card on the electronic machine, enter personal identification number or sign a payment slip, and lastly collect a copy of receipt. The total amount will be subtracted from the card balance once the transaction is complete successfully.

What are the benefits of using a prepaid cash card?

No charges
There are no interest charges, late payment or over limit fees as this is cardholder’s money instead of credit. In fact prepaid cash cards are useful especially for teenagers as a cardholder needs not to be 18 to apply for one.

Convenience
Prepaid cash card can be used anytime and anywhere to buy groceries, to fill petrol, and to withdraw cash from an ATM. It can even be used to make online payment such as paying bills, buying movie tickets and airline tickets, and online shopping as it is widely accepted across the internet. Prepaid cash cards are issued under a MasterCard, Visa Electron, Maestro or Amex badge, and therefore having the same acceptance as credit and debit cards.

Cardholders can also use prepaid cash cards to register for services such as Ebay or Paypal to grab better deals pay via Internet immediately. This replaces the need to send cash, cheques or postal orders, which can add another 7-10 days before goods are received.

Safer than cash
Cardholders do not need to carry around large sums of cash. In most cases, if the card gets stolen or lost, the remaining balance will be transferred across to a new account to protect from unauthorized transactions, and cardholder will receive a replacement card.

Better financial planning
Prepaid cash cards allow cardholders to have better financial planning by limiting their spending and avoiding over spending as they are in complete control of their funds. They can only spend up to the maximum amount of money that has preloaded in onto the card. In UK, some of the card issuers enable cardholders to store some emergency funds by setting up pay as they go prepaid accounts.

Security
Prepaid cash cards would be the better choice if consumers are still uncomfortable on giving the numbers of credit card on the Internet. Since prepaid cash cards can be charged only up to the value of the pre-loaded fund, the thieves cannot make an excessive charge using the cards.

How to choose a right card?

It makes sense to look for a prepaid card with low sign-up, annual, monthly and top-up fees. However, there are other things to consider when deciding on the right card:

What are the reload options - can you pop into a local bank, can you reload online, etc?
Can you manage the card online - can you see transactions, etc?
Is there a 24 hour service to reload money on to the card when necessary?
Is there a free additional card?
What level of protection does the card provider offer?

As with a credit card, shopping around is the key to getting the best deal for consumrs. At the moment the prepaid card market has relatively few providers compared to the credit card market but competition is beginning to intensify which will in turn drive down costs and increase service.