CORPORATE BLOGGING

BLOGS AS MARKETING COMMUNICATION TOOLS

Research suggests that customers value a unique, more personalized message, and marketers continue to seek opportunities that will deliver that message in innovative and interesting ways. For example, GM has several different categories of blogs, including the Fastlane blog, about cars and trucks, where GM leaders discuss their opinions and provide feedback; the GM tuner blog, discusses racing and other events where GM products may be featured; the Cadillac blog is the “story of two engineers who test drive the new Cadillac CTS all over the world” . A quick scan of these blogs and opinions posted at the blogsite reveals the very targeted nature of GM's blogs.

WHY COMPANIES SHOULD BLOG

Many users of corporate blogs cite the unfiltered nature of blogs as a key benefit. Blogs appear to humanize a faceless business, and give customers insight into the company. Furthermore, a well-designed blog also gives the company insight into the customer and his or her thinking. More importantly, since many blogs are anonymous and the postings are almost always unsolicited, the information that most people provide is candid and uncensored. This unfiltered look at the customer is perhaps the biggest advantage for the marketer. In addition, the interactive nature of blogs allows a company to participate in its own market research, and to respond to feedback provided by the customers.

As for generating negative publicity, it is important to realize that, with the availability of electronic media, people will share comments about their experiences with a company regardless of the existence of a blog. If these comments can be solicited and responded to in a company-sponsored blog, the company can better control or manage the information. More importantly, it can respond to appropriate criticism or accolades in a fast and effective manner.

Below is a video that explains the importance of corporate blogging

Review a local e-commerce site

One of the local e-commerce websites is the http://www.mytns.com.my/. This is about skin care product website. It is a very convenience website for the consumers to purchase good without visiting the traditional store.


This website provides many services to the customers such as if the customers can check out whether the product suitable for themselves or not, they can ask expert adviser or check for the beauty specialist before buy the goods. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/asktheexpert.asp Every product that displayed on the website also has shown its own description. So customer can order the product based on the description. http://guides.clickthecity.com/metro/?p=1807 Besides that, this website is also provides a space to let consumers to post their comment for the particular product, so the new customer may can refer to that comment. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/feedback_enquiry.asp The most attracting of this website is there has a guide line that showing step-by-step to guide you how to e-shopping, check-out and how to pay for it. It helps a lot for the consumer that not so similar with e-commerce website or the first time user. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/step_by_step_guide.asp

In my opinion, the disadvantage of this website is they only allow the credit card holder to purchase the product such as visa and master card. For those who are debit card holder and prepaid card holder are not allowing to order through internet. On the other hands, this website only allows the members to look for their product. They only post this month promotion product for the public to view it. It means that, the customer need to register as their member then only allow viewing the entire product.

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

The e-Government means that use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services or transaction with citizens businesses and other arms of government in order to improve internal efficiency. The primary delivery models are Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Customer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G) and Government-to-Employees (G2E).

The e-government in Malaysia was initiated by the introduction of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in year 1996 and it was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It has to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Beside this, it also will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

There have 7 pilot flagship applications introduced in MSC. The objectives of those flagship applications are to jump start and go faster of MSC, to enhance national competitiveness, to creation of high value jobs and to make MSC become a national hub. The 7 main projects are:
(1) Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
(2) Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
(3) Generic Office Environment (GOE)
(4) Electronic Procurement (EP)
(5) Electronic Services (E-services)
(6) Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
(7) E-Syariah

The factor that will lead to a successful to implementation is E-government requires leadership. Leadership is required in the early stage of e-government to be able to gain acceptance of concepts and benefits. Beside this, leadership also required to manage change and continue support for the e-government project.

The implementation of e-government increases the need for the ICT-related skills in government. The skills required are not only technical but also the decision making skills. The managers must be able to lead the organization’s IT department and integrate the ICT strategy.

Beside this, monitoring and evaluate are essential to effective e-government because the assessment are useful to decision-makers with priority to the assessment of demand, benefits and service quality.

In Malaysia, the uses of e-government is not that much because the citizen are not familiar with the ICT skills so that for the citizen’s adoption strategies is the government should communicate the benefits of e-government services to citizens. Emphasizing those advantages will lead to higher levels of perceived usefulness and relative advantages. Beside this, the government can increase the perceived compatibility by making the adoption of online services as faultless as possible because these will significant citizens intention to use the e-government services.

Things to Take Note to Prevent E-auction Fraud when a Consumer Participating in an E-auction

Auction is a market mechanism that allows buyers making bids and sellers placing offers. On the other hands, auction is also a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the winning bidder. The word “auction” is derived from the Latin augere, which means “to increase” or “augment”. Auctions can be categorized into primary types of auction (English auction, Dutch auction, Sealed first-price auction and Vickrey auction) and second type of auction (All-pay auction, Buyout auction, Combinatorial auction, Non-reserve auction and Reserve auction). The most popular types of auction is e-auction.

Here, I would like to share some tips that are very useful to prevent e-auction fraud when participating in an e-auction.

1. You do not simply disclose your personal data. When you receive any email from anyone which required your personal data for example credit card number, account number or passwords, you do not just send the data required without verification of who is the one requires your personal data.
2. You are advised to ask the seller when delivery can be expected if not specified in the listing, and about warranty, exchange or return of merchandise you find unsatisfactory.
3. You must read the extra information and the listing about shopping and handing fees carefully to avoid the unexpected cost. If there is no specific information provided, you may want to clarify before you start bidding.
4. Before you starting to bid, you should make all things clear, such as you must know how the internet auction work, what your obligation are as a buyer, and seller’s obligations are.
5. You must aware of the rating of the particular sellers. If the rating for such seller is bad or negative, then you are not suppose to bid with the particular seller.

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Electronic Currency

Nowadays, a lot of companies look forward to the electronic currency trading. Electronic currency is also known as e-money, electronic money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It means that the transaction between the company and the user is using the computer networks. There have a lot of success companies to implement the business by using this system, such as Hong Kong’s octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into widely used electronic card system.

Electronic currency is far from the traditional ways of payment like banks, cheques, paper money and coins. E-currency allows users through internet or wireless devices to pay directly from their bank accounts by electronic such as micropayment, mobile payment (m-payment) or person-to-person (p2p) payments.

One of the examples of the e-currency is the PayPal. PayPal is the service allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information. The background of the PayPal can refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal. The advantages and disadvantages of PayPal can refer to the http://www.merchant-account-service.com/paypal.html.

EBay is the one of the company opens up PayPal to developer. It is because PayPal allows buyers to pay instantly for eBay purchases. Buyer's like PayPal because they can quickly and easily pay for eBay purchases online. The more detail of the eBay using the PayPal, can refer to http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=paypal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=11&ct=title.

There have some advantage and disadvantage by using the electronic currency in our life. User can refer to this http://www.iit.edu/~peacjen/cs485/ecash2.htm to determine the safeguard by using the electronic currency.

Credit Card Debts: Causes & Preventions

CAUSES of CREDIT CARD DEBTS
The issue of credit-card debt among college students has received increasing attention recently because students often receive incentives, such as t-shirts or mugs, to apply for cards, and requirements, such as previous credit history, are often waived.

Colleges, too, have embraced the idea of credit cards among their students which caused students to fall to the credit cards trap. 77 percent of colleges reported accepting credit cards for payment of tuition. Further, many colleges allow companies to solicit students and alumni with imprint cards, cards personalized with the institution's logo. Credit card companies often are allowed to seek business on campus.

Other students may get into debt because of the assumption that they will easily get out of debt upon graduation from college. Graduate students, although concerned about their debt, viewed it as necessary for paying bills and staying in school. Unfortunately, this belief that debt will be quickly repaid can be misguided. Today's college students have grown up in a culture saturated with credit cards, but may view credit as something abstract or equivalent to earnings.

Another factor related to student credit card debt is one's attitude toward money. Teenagers experience "premature affluence" because of their high levels of discretionary income and almost no bills. Some teens may become used to a certain lifestyle and not know how to adjust when bills increase in college. Further, some students may be more comfortable with debt. Higher levels of debt in college students were related to greater tolerance of debt. Students may be willing to tolerate debt so that they can maintain the comfortable lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

PREVENTION of CREDIT CARD DEBTS
Clearly, consumer debt is a problem for a significant number of students. Many students lack the knowledge of how to handle credit and have attitudes that suggest that debt is acceptable. What then can be done?

First, education is the key. However, education must go beyond providing information. It is important to educate students about credit cards. Students need to know basic guidelines for eliminating and staying out of debt such as knowing credit card balances and interest rates, knowing that transferring high-interest rate balances to lower rate cards provides instant savings (if the high rate cards are immediately cut up), and that debit cards and checks allow students to only spend what they actually have.

Colleges should be encouraged to develop their own programs or modify existing high school programs to increase awareness and financial skills. A logical place for such a program would be in conjunction with new student orientation, although programming should be offered throughout the year and for all students.

Education and awareness alone may not be enough to reduce the problem of student credit card debt. Changing the process by which students obtain credit cards on campus is another important component. For example, a recommendation is that students not be allowed to receive free gifts for applying until after they have read a credit card educational brochure. This help to prevent any unnecessary credit card usage and unawareness of the high interest repayable if there’s default.

While colleges are in a position to teach credit card savvy to students, that task is not the sole responsibility of--nor should it begin with--the institution of higher education. Ideally, money management techniques would be first taught in the home with relevant programming implemented at the elementary and high school levels. The issue at hand is a societal problem, which requires a concerted effort by parents, educators, elected officials et al.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumers

“Prepaid card”, do the phrase sound familiar to all of you? For sure, it is believed that whoever holding mobile phone with them will know that phrase very well. But that prepaid card is not similar as the prepaid cash card that use to purchase of goods. As the prepaid cash cards have been introduced, they are taking the world of consumer spending by storm.

Today, there is a shown of rapid growth on using prepaid cards in certain payment part. In general, it is going to replace paper-based payment instrument. Basically, prepaid card is a card that allow buyer to transfer funds that are accessed electronically when goods and services are bought by recipients provided that there is a restriction on the types of merchants or products that can be bought. However, even if a payment part is ideal for prepaid products, adoption of them will depend on the ability of providers of these products to get all transactors on board. Besides that, prepaid card holders also allow to make electronic payment even though no relationship with financial institutions. Nevertheless, prepaid cards allow recipients to receive funds and spend them where the prepaid value is accepted. In some cases, the prepaid value can be converted to cash. Whether purchasers, recipients, and sellers of goods and services adopt a new payment choice is dependent on costs and benefits of prepaid products versus existing payment choices. However, it is believed that most of you know that cost of prepaid cards could also mean that consumers with nowhere else to go and whoever cannot afford it, are being forced to pay by using their own money since prepaid card providers are not making money.

Recently, consumers are more preferred on the existing payment mechanisms, such as cash, cheque and credit and debit cards, than prepaid card. Prepaid cards are prefunded; their value either resides on the card or at a remote database. At the beginning stage, prepaid cards were introduced to compete with small value cash transactions. At the same time, prepaid cards have been effective as a cash substitute in closed environments, such as university, campuses, coffee shop and so on, but prepaid cards have not been able to gain significant market penetration as a cash substitute. (Chakravorti, 2004; Van Hove, 2004a, 2005)

On the other hand, there have been quite a few applications of retailer specific prepaid cards that have been successful. Those specific prepaid card did provide benefits to both consumers and merchants. Those benefits to consumers include convenience, speed and possible rewards, such as discount on future purchases and those benefits to merchants include receiving cash in advance of the delivery of goods and services, increased loyalty, potentially faster payment processing at the point of sale and potentially lower payment processing costs. Yet, if the benefits are greater than the cost, the retailer may pay customers to purchase and use its prepaid card. Now the market for the prepaid card is till up and coming, certain prepaid applications are growing rapidly. There is a difficulty in collecting accurate usage and volume of prepaid payments caused by the diversity of issuers and applications and lack of an established uniform definition of a prepaid payment product. An analysis is conducted from year 1999 to 2005, the value of prepaid card purchases have been boosted. Moreover, the growth of prepaid applications has been faster than what has been expected on it.

Example of company that using prepaid card for consuming.

Starbucks Coffee Company (abstracted from article)
Starbucks Coffee Company, the worldwide chain of coffee houses, introduced a prepaid card in November2001, primarily to reduce the processing costs of previously issued paper gift certificates. Gift giving has been a critical factor to the success of the card. Around 60% to 80% of the activity on these cards results from users receiving the cards as gifts. As consumers migrate from cash payments to electronic alternatives, Starbucks has been able to lower some of its payment processing costs. Transaction costs are important to Starbucks because the company receives millions of payments monthly and most are valued at less than $5 each. Consumers use signature based debit cards or credit cards for up to 25 percent of their purchases (Chakravorti and Jankowski, 2005).While Starbucks’ cost of accepting cash payments is nearly one-third of accepting credit cards or signature based debit cards, the cost of its prepaid card is less than cash. Starbucks prepaid cards have enabled the coffee house chain to increase revenue by attracting new customers and enhancing the loyalty of existing customers. Unlike most consumers who discard their gift cards after their initial use, one out of three Starbucks card holders reloads value on the cards, suggesting these cards are more convenient for some Starbucks’ customers than other payment options. The company reports that electronic payments, including prepaid cards, provide some speed of service benefits. The coffee house chain is able to accept prepaid card payments faster than cash, thereby reducing customers’ wait times.

After an example, sure make you more understand on how the prepaid cards going to benefit both retailer and the card holder. Prepaid card initially introduced to avoid cash transactions and now continue to replace with cheques. Although prepaid cards are able to serve some key payment part, such as gift, employer initiated and government benefits programs, it is unlikely that they could significantly substitute for electronic account-based or credit-based payment products. Prepaid applications potentially provide a more cost-effective means to transfer funds by do not need to access through transactions accounts. The growth of prepaid cards is dependent on transactors’ benefits and their willingness to pay for the provision of services. Adoption of prepaid cards in niche markets may result in increased familiarity and confidence among payment system participants to spur even wider adoption of such products for other payment section.

"Prepaid cards are not for everyone," says Ken Howes. Therefore, there is not necessary to everyone to have prepaid card. "People have a choice about whether the benefits of having the card are worth the fees, and they are not forced upon people." But he says transparency and regulation are crucial to prevent "a competition in the prepaid arena".

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