Blogs are not just widely in use by individuals now but also corporate. Hence, there is a new term arose called the corporate blogging. Corporate blog are published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals.

There are approximately 15 organizations that really using corporate blogging as their new marketing communication tool. They are:

1. Dell

2. Lenovo
3. Adobe

4. 37signals

5. BBC
6. Southwest Airlines
7. Sun microsystems
8. FreshBooks

9. Marriotts International
10. Seagate

11. General Motors

12. Quicken Loans

13. FiveRuns
14. Accenture
15. Amazon Web Service

Benefits of Corporate Blogging

Corporate blogging is actually a very useful communication tool if the organization manage to use it effectively.

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A Review Of Lelong Malaysia Site

Lelong.com.my is a Malaysia online transactional site is more like E-bay where people can bid for products for a certain period of time. The highest bidder will get to purchase the product. Over here, users can purchase or sell new or used items. The main advantage of this site is that it does not charge its users any transactional fees unless the user which to post more than 1 picture of a particular products at the site.

Lelong.com.my also enables its user to set up their own virtual store if they meet certain rating requirement. For setting up a virtual store, users have to pay a yearly sum for it but in return, users can name their own store and put in their own logo as well as their own store URL. Rating system is also available in lelong.com.my. This is to enable the customer of a particular user to rate the seller and also helps to bring confidence to the other customers who are not familiar with the seller.

Buyers can pay for the products they purchase with a number of way such as using online banking, telegraphic transfer, bank-in, or safe trade. In lelong.com.my, they offer safe trade to their users. Customer wants their goods while seller wants money. Safe trade works by having the buyers pay to the safe trade account and the money will not be release to the seller first. Seller will have to send the goods to the buyer and when buyer received the goods, they will authorise the release of money to the seller. This feature helps to build confidence in the buyer and as well helping the seller to have more sales as the buyer is not worry of being cheated.

In lelong.com.my, they also offer quick grab in which the product price is set by the seller. This is for the buyer who wants the products and does not which to bid or wait for the bidding time to end. This website also provides a forum where buyers and sellers can chat with each other. Moreover, buyer can also announce to their prospective buyer their upcoming offers at the same time.

Related links:
Lelong.com.my  - Forum
Lelong Safetrade

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Source: Business University

Wi-Fi is gaining popularity in almost every city in the country all thanks to its low cost implementation and ease to use. Cafe, fast food restaurant and even bank outlets are armed with Wi-Fi connectivity for the convenience of their customers to access to the Internet. All the customer need is to have Wi-Fi device. Home users too, are beginning to switch their home network into a wireless network. This is could eliminate they problem of buying LAN cables and finding suitable place to put it before any mishap of tripping someone.

Source: Home-Network-Help

However, most home user wireless network are without any security. Without security enabled in the wirless network, any Tom and Harry with a Wi-Fi device could happily access to the home network and gaining the Internet Access with a click of scanning on surrounding networks. According to My E-commerce blog, there were several cases in UK where the offender is found guilty in tapping his neighbour's Internet connection via Wi-Fi laptop. Hence, the question arises whether the responsibility of user to protect their own network or it is fall in the hands of the Internet Service Provider.

I personally believe that Malaysian users need to be aware of the importance of security in their Wi-Fi. A quick scan on Bandar Sungai Long using my N95Most users often neglect the instruction given by the Internet Service Provider to place at least a WEP password either in their wireless router. A user must choose a strong password or otherwise a hacker could gain access to the wireless network easily. Besides, users should equipped themselves a firewall software to moniter any unauthorized inbound connections. For a tighter security, one could switch off the broadcasting of the SSID through the router configuration or block any unidentifiable MAC address that are accessing to the home network. Finally, a user should change the administration password for the access to the router configuration. All these steps should be taken in reducing the vulnerability of the wireless home network.

Related Links:

• Wireless Security
• Two cautioned over Wi-Fi theft

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E-government is defined as the usage of IT and e-commerce to access to government information and other public services meant for the citizens and businesses. Many countries are implementing e-government including Malaysia. E-government is an effective and efficient way to conduct government business transaction with the public and business as well as within the government itself. In Malaysia, e-government has begun after Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was implemented by government.

By implementing e-government, this can enhance the government operation. It also improves the delivery services towards the citizen of Malaysia. In addition, it also improves the accessibility, effectiveness, convenience and the quality of interaction with the citizen and businesses. This will enable the government to be more attentive and responsive towards the nation needs. E-government can improve the speed, the coordination of government policy and so on. There are seven main projects under e-government flagship. It includes Project Monitoring System (SPP II), Human Resource Management Information Systems (HRMIS), Generic Office Environment (GOE), Electronic Procurement (EP), Electronic Services (E-Services), Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX), E-syariah.

Implementing e-government is not an easy task and there are a few barriers that need to overcome. Hence, adopting citizen’s adoption is important during the process. Firstly, service quality. Examples of services quality are the quality of content of the website, the speed of response concerning the citizen’s problems, the prompt solutions of the problems, and the availability of the contact numbers and so on. A good quality service can enhance the customer satisfaction.

Secondly is customer satisfaction. By having the adoption of e-commerce, the customer satisfaction will increase. This is because people do not have to queue up just to pay up the bills or wait longer hours just to enquire some information. All the information can be available in the website. It is a convenient way for the people as they can obtain information just at their finger tips.

Lastly is the website design. The design of the website has to be attractive to the users. In this website, products offerings can be advertise in order to attract the people and to encourage them to use e-government. This is a best tool to communicate with the people and businesses. Not to mention, a ggod security is also crucial. All the users information need to be private and confidential. This will give a higher level of security and thus people will trust e-government as well as the adoption rate will boost up.

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Credit card is a card that repeatedly used to buy products or items and services on credit basis which issued by banks or other financial institutions. Extra and added security as well as ease of shopping and travelling is provided when using credit card. However, people tend to misuse their credit cards which lead to credit card debts. This leads to an increase problems of bankruptcies each year.

The major factor that brings to a credit card debt is poor money management. Poor management of money is one of the biggest causes of credit card debt due to the accumulated of credit card debts. People do not keep track on their bills and monthly expenditures. Without keeping record of their spending, people are not aware how much they are spending which raise debts in one month. If people continue to swip credit cards, they do not realize that later on in the future they are unable to pay back the debts.

Secondly is unemployment. Unemployment is also one of the factors that cause credit card debts. Due to economic downturn, many people lost their job and to make matter worse, they are unable to keep up with the daily living expenses. So the short cut way is to use the future money which is the credit card to cover up their future living expenditures. When the expenses are not cut down to cover the reduction of the income, this can lead to a rise of debt.

Lastly, the cause of credit card debt is no saving cushion. People will tend to use future money when they have credit. This means they do not have savings in the banks. It is hard to save money when they spend more than their income. The benefit of savings is to help to cover up the expenses such as illness, job layoff, education, insurance and other important expenses.

There are a few preventive methods can be taken to avoid credit card debt. Having a budget is important. By having budget, we have can think and plan our expenses. We need to keep track on our receipt and bills so that we do not over spend. By having budget, we shall can somehow prevent credit card debt.

Not to mention, self control and discipline is important. Those who have credit card they must learn to be self control and self discipline. This is to avoid overspending and can limit the credit card spending. Lastly is by contacting and dealing with the creditors. When you have problem settling your debts, you can address the problem with the creditors. They can identify whether they could give a revised payment arrangement.

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Mobile payment is becoming a major way of paying in Asia and Europe. Instead of using credit card or cash, user only need thier mobile phone to do a transaction. The market for mobile payment is expected to be at around $600 billion by the year 2013. This show that a lot of people are aware of the effectiveness of mobile payment and companies are venturing in to this service.

Mobile payment system is becoming a major way of paying in Malaysia. With around 25 million mobile phone user, and current infrastructure, mobile payment can attract a lot of users. With mobile payment, users do not need to take all the hassle to travel or line up to pay or purchase what the need. Even Bank Negara have acknowledge the emergence and usefulness of mobile payment but Bank Negara have put it at a low leval of usage due to confidence of the user and low awareness about the usefulness of mobile payment.

Even transferring money can be done online with just a few clicks on the mobile phone. Money can be even transfer from one country to other country and the recipient can withdraw the money sent by their love ones. Emergence of mobile payment allows the users, to pay all their purchases without having a credit card. All they need is a “NFC (Near Field Communication)” phone and wave it a special reader. Users can also make mobile payment through other method which is WAP (mobile web payment), direct mobile billing or premium SMS based transaction payment. Security is not an issue as the service provider will provide the necessary security.

In Malaysia, a lot of companies have been setting up their service here, Com2u Sdn Bhd enable users to transfer money using mobile phone while Maxis, Touch N Go, Visa, Nokia and Maybank is working on multi payment service which will enable user to pay everything using their phones. The service from Maxis now enable user to purchase their items from 1,800 participating Visa pay-Wave merchants and 3,000 Touch N Go points nationwide. With this, users of Maxis can now able to purchase anything they want without having to bring any cash or credit cards. Buying a products using mobile paymant is also fast and users do not need to queue as all users only need to put the phone near a reader and the payment is made automatically. Since this service is gaining popularity, there will be more and more large companies that will be joining the race to grab market share in the mobile payment sector.

Related Links :
Mis-asia.com
Newscentre.msc.com.my
Mobile88.com.my
Wikipedia

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Electronic currency or cashless transactions are transactions done or made electronically without the use of cash. Usually, users of electronic currency are provided with a plastic card with an electronic chip embedded on top of it to keep track the amount of cash stored in the card. These cards are the various forms of electronic currency can be used for purchasing items from a local shop, retailer, bookstore, petrol station and airport around the world that supports electronic currency technology in lieu of cash. In addition, consumers are able to use electronic currency to purchase items through the Internet.

There are several types of electronic currency cards, such as Debit Card, Credit Card and Touch n’ Go Card.

A Debit Card has a certain amount of money stored in the card by the user. When a user made a transaction, the amount of expenses made is usually deducted from the money stored in the card. Some debit card act as an ATM card where the amount of purchase is directly deducted in the user’s bank account. This allows the user to use the Debit Card to withdraw money from any ATM machines.

A Credit Card allows a user to purchase items in credit and made the payment to the bank after a period of time (usually a month). The disadvantage of Credit Card is high interest will be charged upon late payments.

A Touch n' Go usually acts as a prepaid card and the value of the card is depending how much a user wanted to top up with the minimum amount of RM10. Touch n' Go card are usually limited to pay transportation fees such as RapidKL, KTM, Kelana Jaya Rail Line, Ampang Rail Line and selected car parks like One Utama and Jaya One that supports the Touch n' Go payment.

 AirCash, M-Money and DiGiREMIT

In Malaysia, the three major mobile phone service providers, Celcom, Maxis and DiGi unveiled a mobile service that allows the user to deposit cash into a virtual account and transfer money locally and internationally. This service is also known as AirCash (Celcom), M-Money (Maxis) or DiGiREMIT (DiGi). This service is recently launched by Celcom but both Maxis and DiGi has this similar service 2 years back. The user is only required to possess a mobile phone device and register the service to the respective mobile service provider. Once the user is registered, the user is able to transfer the money from the bank account to the virtual account. In addition, the user could use the money in the virtual account to transfer money and purchase item such as grocery, petrol, books and others with the maximum limit of RM1,500. The entire process of transferring money and purchasing items are done digitally without the use of physical cash. Parents who have children studying abroad will be happy to have this service and it save them the trouble of using the bank to transfer money. Foreign workers could take this advantage to send money back to their home.

Thus, as we could see that electronic currency has beginning to play a crucial role in our life as it brought both convenience and security on using money. Instead of risking our safety by stuffing a wallet filled with cash to shop or transfer money, all we need is just a card or a mobile phone to do the job.

Related Links:

• Celcom Expects 500,000 AirCash Subscribers By Year-end
• Maxis Unveils Cell Phone Money Transfer
• DiGiREMIT – Money Transfer by Mobile Phone

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