Corporate Blogging: A new marketing tool for companies

Generally, a corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads.

Basically there are two types of blogs. Firstly would be the internal blog which are accessed through the corporation's Intranet and is a weblog that any employee can view. Internal blogs may be used in meetings and e-mail discussions that are useful when the people involved are in different locations or have conflicting schedules. Blogs may also allow individuals who otherwise would not have been aware of or invited to participate in a discussion to contribute their expertise.

Another blog would be the external blog which are publicly available weblog where company employees, teams or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services, explain and clarify policies or to react on public criticism on certain issues. Certain corporate blogs have a very high number of subscribers. The official Google Blog is currently in the Technorati top 50 listing among all blogs worldwide. External corporate blogs, by their very nature are biased, though they can also offer a more honest and direct view than traditional communication channels. Nevertheless, they remain public relations tools.

As for the communication tool, marketers might expect to have product influencers among the audience of an external blog. Once they find them, they may treat them like VIPs, asking them for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services audits. Furthermore, leaders can communicate directly with customers, investors and suppliers in explaining and introducing the new product. Next, corporate blogging will have a broad impact on the nature of online media. Moreover, the public would mark the organization as an authentic and forward looking organisation. Furthermore, corporate blogging would have a positive effect on the company's reputation.

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

Introduction

E-Government involves the computerization of existing paper-based procedures that makes things more convenient for the citizens. This E-government involves new ways of transaction that we have never seen before traditionally. Most importantly, it aims to better its services to the citizens so that they can enjoy more benefits from using E-government. E-government also aims to strengthen government's drive towards effective governance and increased transparency to better manage a country's social and economic resources for development. Besides that, citizens can save alot of time by learning how to use E-Government.

Advantages of Using E-Government

• Efficient and swift delivery of goods and services to citizens, businesses, government employees and agencies.





• Simplification of procedures and streamlining of the approval process.





• Facilitation of cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure appropriate and timely decision-making.

According to the 5th Waseda University International ranking on e-Government 2009, Malaysia is ranked at number 22 in the world. This is a tremendous improvement for Malaysia. This shows that the government is promoting and encouraging the use of E-governement.

Example of the application of E-Government

e-filing

E-filing is a method of filing all income documents of tax payer in Malaysia. It uses an electronic format rather than a traditional paper format, from office or home through Internet. To use this service, taxpayers need to make a tax registration. Malaysia's Inland Revenue Board (IRB) will send the PIN for online tax registration through mail to the taxpayers.

Renewing Road Tax















Drivers will be able to renew their roadtax through https://rdtax.myeg.com.my/MYROADTAX/. This is very convenient as drivers do not have to go out of the house to pay. Drivers can just go online and type in their personal information such as owner Ic/ passport number, vehicle registration number and etc and send to complete the renewal.







Renewing Driving License















Drivers can renew their driving license through http://jpj.myeg.com.my/JPJSERVE/ . This is very convenient as drivers can just go online and type in their personal information such as ID number, vehicle category, expiry date and etc as required in the field and click send to complete the renewal.



Problems Faced in The Implementation

1. Lacks of Public Awareness- Many people are not aware or sceptical when they are asked to use this application. This is probably because people are not well educated about it and too familiar about the application.





2. Online Behaviour- People are sceptical and do not trust on electronic transaction much especially on banking online and various transactions that involves typing in their private credit card information for fear of hackers commiting fraud against them.





3. Language Barrier- Language used to be a barrier, however, many of the government websites are in English now and this should encourage even more people to use it.
   

Encouraging People to use the e-government Applications

1. Increase awareness of the various e-government application websites by promoting them in various media such as radio, television and newspaper.





2. Provide more friendly and efficient help counter online to help users who are not familiar with the application.





3. Find ways to further simplify the procedures in using the E-government applications.

References

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/E-government/Definition
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Government
http://www.myeg.com.my/
http://www.giti.waseda.ac.jp/GITS/news/download/e-Government_Ranking2009_en.pdf

Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction.

Ebay.com is one of the popular auction websites where users can get products for low price. But before bidding for a product, we should consider some aspects. Fraud might be conducted by customers or by sellers. Some times consumers may send fake checks or fake account details to the sellers. But, most of the fraud cases are conducted by sellers. According to the statistics of National Internet Fraud Watch Information center, Most of the internet frauds are based on online auctions. Forty five percent of online frauds are based on e-auctions, reported in 2005.

E-Auctions

In online auctions, buyers compete to grab desired products for low price. But before going to bid, we should consider that sellers play some tricks to lure the buyers.

1.Bid shielding:
Bid shielding is one of the ways to mislead the real bidders. Fake bidders starts bidding with very high price and they drop from the bidding at last minute. The real bidder who bid for low price would win the bid and he needs to pay for it. All this is just to mislead the real buyer’s concentration to their products.

2.Shilling:

In shilling, sellers arrange fake IDs and start bidding as buyers. The real bidders lure to the particular product and they bid it for little bit high amount than previous. In this way sellers get more benefit.

3.Hidden shipping costs and handling fee:

Sellers hide the real shipping cost and handling fee. By the time buyers get the product, they might need to pay more than they expected.

4.Failure to deliver:

Some times buyer will never get the product even after he/she paid for it. This is an old type of cheating method.

5. Damage and loss claims:

This type of frauds might be from buyer’s side. Buyer tries to claim new product or refund by reporting the seller that they never got products or they got damaged product. Some times seller can not prove the delivery of product.

Prevention of online auction fraud:

1.Buyers could buy products on secured websites only.
2.Buyers can know the website security by checking security certificate of website on browser.
3.Buyers could check the seller reputation and feedback.
4.Buyers can contact the seller and inquire about all required information.
5.Victims of fraud should report the fraud information to the website management as well as Internet fraud repot. This would help to delete cheater account and sentence him.

Review a local e-commerce site

MPH Bookstores is the largest bookstores chain in Malaysia. MPH online.com is a virtual bookstore. It allows people to browse, search, as well as buy books by online.

In the MPH online.com, the main color of the site is white. The purposes are to emphasis the products and make the products become more attractive. On the home page, it shows various special offers which will attract more customers to buy its products.

The search engine had been provided by this site which allows us to search for items that they need. The download speed is also very fast.

In the MPH online.com, the books are divided into 35 categories. People can easily search for the relevant book by clicking on the relevant category. They can choose the books that are most suitable for them because it’s allowed them to view the book description by just click on the book’s icon.

After people had decided which book to buy, they just click “add to cart” icon. However, before they can view their shopping cart, they must login first. If they are a new customer, they must fill in details by clicking "sign-in" link to be a member. Then, it will bring them to their shopping cart. In the shopping cart, they will see the item that they have added. That allowed the customers to check the details of the items they have ordered.

MPH online.com also provides other services for their customers. For loyal customers, every purchase made at MPH online.com qualifies for point collection through MPH Readers’ Circle program.

In conclusion, MPH online.com is an e-commerce site which is user friendly. The overall site design and layout of the MPH online.com also very nice and well-organized.

Related link

http://www.mph.com.my/misc/faq.cfm/misc/faq.cfmhttp://www.mph.com.my/disclaimer/oserv.cfm

http://www.mph.com.my/disclaimer/mrctc.cfm