Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Nowadays, more and more organizations use corporate blog as a new marketing communication tool.

First at all, what is corporate blog? Actually, corporate blog is just like a personal blog which we use for posting our personal article or updating our personal information and news. Many organizations use the corporate blog to sell and promote their products. In other words, Corporate Blog Marketing is the science of using standard online communications tools to allow marketers, sales representatives and even C-level executives a medium through which they can connect with their customers.

Corporate Blog bring a lot of benefit to organization. For example:

Customer Relationships and Feedback
In every instance, the point of a business blog marketing campaign is to establish a two-way channel for communication between a business and its customers. In doing so, businesses can get feedback on new products and services and also stay in touch with pertinent industry “buzz” and trends.

Corporate Imaging/Branding
Corporate blogs, both through their content and potential visibility in search engines, improve overall brand awareness amongst a companies targeted customer base.

New Product and Service Testing
Such a two-way channel of communication allows for immediate feedback from your customer base on new market ideas and products/services in their fledgling phases.

Improved Media Relations
A corporate blog not only provides a medium for your customers, it also provides a channel through which the media can get informed on new business developments, products and services.

However, there has some disadvantage of corporate blogging. Corporate blogging might make it easy for defamation and invasion of privacy or to breach information security and loss of company confidentiality.

Beside that, it will create an expectation of updating the blog regularly.

Additionally, a new style of communication will be mastered since corporate blogging become popular in these recent years.

To make a successful corporate blog, there has some step:
- Companies have to be more concern about the liability and limitation that will lead to legal issue.
-Update frequently in order to attract more readers/ customers to visit it.
-Visiting and observing high quality corporate blogs and learn their blogging skill.


There are some examples of successful blogs, example Boeing, Facebook, Google
Dell, Yahoo!

In conclusion, corporate blogging is getting important for corporation to deliver the message privately or publicly since it has brought many pros even thought the cons come along with it.

Reference:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/30/most-corporate-blogs-are-unimaginative-failures/

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

Internet auction fraud is a growing epidemic worldwide, as online shopping has grown significantly every year that online shopping has been available. 51,000 cases of internet fraud cases were reported in 2002. In 2006, that number ballooned to 97,000. The numbers are staggering, but everyone can lower their risk by knowing what auction fraud is, how to detect it, and how to prevent falling for it.

Most internet auction fraud cases involve straightforward scams where consumers allegedly win merchandise by being the highest bidder. All sounds good until they send the payment and never receive the merchandise.

The largest Internet auctioneer is eBay which has introduced several measures in an effort to reduce fraud. Following are action to prevent e-auction fraud:

1. User identity verification such in IC number, driver’s license number or date of birth. For example, verified eBay user, the voluntary program, encourages users to supply eBay with information for online verification.

2. Authentication service. It is to determine whether an item is genuine and described appropriately. It difficult to perform because their training and experience, experts can detect counterfeits based on subtle detail.

3. Grading services which is a way to determine the physical condition of an item, such as ‘poor quality’ or ‘mint condition’. Different item have different grading systems. For example, trading cards are graded from A1 to F1, while coins are graded from poor to perfect uncirculated.

4. Feedback forum. It allows buyers and sellers to build up their online trading reputations. It provides user with ability to comment on their experiences with other.

5.Insurance policy. For example, eBay offers insurance underwritten, users are covered up to $200, will with a $25 deductible. The program is provided at no cost to eBay user.

6. Escrow services. Both buyers and sellers in a deal are protected with an independent third party. Buyer mails the payment to escrow services which verifies the payment and alerts the seller when everything checks out. An example of a provider of online escrow services s i-Escrow.

7. Non-payment punishment. To protect sellers, a friendly warning for first-time nonpayment. A sterner warning is for second-time offense, with a 30 day suspension for a third offense and an indefinite suspension for a fourth offense.

8. Appraisal services which use a variety of methods to appraise items. It includes expert assessment of authenticity and condition, and reviewing what comparable items have sold for in the marketplace in recent months.

9. Item verification which is a way of confirm he identity and evaluate the condition of an item. Third parties will evaluate and identify an item through a variety of means. For example, some collectors have their item “DNA tagged” for identification purpose. It provides a way of tracking an item if it charges ownership in future.

10. Physical inspection. It can eliminate many problems especially for collectors’ item.

Reference:

http://www.crimcheck.com/background-check-news/whats-internet-auction-fraud-and-how-do-i-prevent-it

http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/laws-government-regulations/332902-1.html

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/390480/eauctions_only_one_tool_in_antifraud_battle/index.html

A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog -- Piracy in Malaysia : Fighting through Education and Enforcement

After reading this blog, we know that Malaysian government has recognised a two-way approach - Enforcement (Ops Tulen) and Education (Sikap Tulen) to reduce the percentages of the software piracy in Malaysia.

Enforcement is continuous raiding companies that use illegal software as well as the illegal vendors selling the pirated software.

Education is to educate the relevant groups, such as professionals, companies, public and IT malls, on the important of respecting Intellectual Property and stay away from pirated software.

As we know, software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers.

Piracy is Illegal and Punishable by Law!!!

Those who found guilty would be fined between RM 2000 and RM 20,000 for each infringing copy of software or sentenced up to 5 years jail or both.

Businesses are Hurted by Software Piracy!!!

For every illegal installation of software, it robs the money of the software company that they used to pay their employees, funding research and development, programming new software, and etc.

According to the BSA, Thirty-five percent of the packaged software installed on personal computers (PC) worldwide in 2005 was illegal, amounting to $34 billion in global losses due to software piracy.

Business Software Alliance (BSA)

BSA ia a global organization formed to advance free and open world transfer for legitimate software by advocating strong intellectual property protection. The BSA represents leading software and e-commerce developers in 65 countries. For more information about the BSA or to report software piracy, visit the BSA Web site at http://www.bsa.org/.

Software piracy hurts everyone because it :

• Reduces the funding for ongoing development efforts
  
• Reduces job opportunities


• Allows for unauthorized copies of our software that may contain bugs and viruses to be used in the field
  
• Prevents users from getting high-quality technical support and product updates
  

How Software Piracy can be Recognized?

• Missing items - shrink wrap, books, CDs, documentation, packaging.

• Outdated versions - make sure you know what is current on the market.
  
• Unpainted CDs - if your CD is silver, unpainted, and has a serial number written on it with a permanent marker, it is an illegal copy.

• Serial Numbers - if the package arrives with the serial number of hand-written, that should be a warning flag.
  

What is Permitted through the License?

• You may install the software on more than one of your personal computers provided that the software is not used on more than one computer at a time.

• You may make one back-up copy of the software for your own personal use. This must never be used, duplicated, distributed, or installed on any computer other than your own personal computer.
  

As a conclusion, the public should aware of the impacts of piracy and support the government with action. To reduce the activities of piracy, Malaysia government should enforce the law. Besides, the anti-piracy campaign should be organized regularly to remind public about the serious problems caused by piracy.

Reference :

http://www.mathworks.com/company/aboutus/policies_statements/piracy.html#preventing

~*E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption strategies*~

Electronic government(e-government) refers to the use of to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. It will improve information flow and processes within the government, improve the speed and quality of policy development, and improve coordination and enforcement. This enabled the government to be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Nowadays, the applications of E-Government that implemented in Malaysia are becoming more popular. For instance, E-Filing, KWSP’s i-Akaun, KWSP’ s kiosk machine, E-Perolehan, registering or renewing road tax and driving licenses online and tracking state regulations. Generally, the interaction parties of E-Government can be divided into few gr

oups, which are Government-to-citizens (G2C), Government-to-business (G2B), Government-to-government (G2G) and Government-to-employees (G2E).

E-Filling allows tax payers submit their tax payable assessment form through internet by filling the virtual online form. E-filling has reduced the workloads of Inland Revenue Board and provides convenient services for tax payer.

ePerolehan is an electronic procurement system that provided by the Government to enable suppliers to sell their products or services via Internet. Through ePerolehan, suppliers and contractors can receive, manage and process orders or payments from Government agencies through transactions done electronically on the Internet.

Here are the potential problems that encounter by Malaysia citizens:

• New net users lack of confidence and knowledge in operating computer or using internet functions.
• Lack of confidence towards the system security due to the happen of severe online fraud cases. They don't willing to reveal their information under the internet based environment.
• Users worries about the accuracy of online processing, potential errors such as double transaction or omission of transaction.

Below are some suggestions to encourage more citizens to use the e-government application:

• Provides more guidance and education to users and let them understand more on the overall e-government processing.
• Maintaining and testing the system frequently to minimize the potential errors.
• Increase the security and reliability level of the e-government application to enhance the confident level of users.
• Checking the system to make sure it is under good condition and would not hack by internet hackers.

References:
https://spsd.hasil.gov.my/PKI/e/mainpage.html
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/EXTEGOVERNMENT/0,,contentMDK:20507153~menuPK:702592~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:702586,00.html
http://clive1201.blogspot.com/2007/11/funny-things.html