What is corporate blogging? Corporate blogging is a new marketing communication tool, called weblog that used and published by an organization to reach its strategic/organizational goals. Currently, most of the browsers (supported by RSS technology) such as Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer enables readers to easily read the posts that recently posted by organization without visiting the blog directly. There three type of corporate blog which are external, internal and CEO Blogs.

• Internal Blogs
  As its name, it is a blog that can view by employees of the organization through accessed the organization’s Intranet. The blog is communal and just allow the employees to post any comment to the blog. This can encourage employee to participate in free discussion of issues; direct communication between various layers of an organization and collective intelligence. By this, employees will have a sense of community and more commitment toward organization.
  
  Besides, it can also be used in e-mail discussions and meeting, especially for those stay in different locations or have conflicting schedules. It also can attract those individuals who may not aware or visited, to take part in the discussion to contribute their knowledge and expertise.

• External Blogs
  An external blog is weblog that is available publicly where organization’s employees, spokespersons or teams can share their views. It is used to explain and clarify policies, to announce new products or services, to react on public criticism on particular issues, or to announce new research and development in products to improve brand and organizational image. It is like an informal press release, allows a window to the organizational culture and allows any comments to be made to the posts. It can seen that the external blogs can provides a more honest and direct view about the organization than traditional communication channels, however, they are one type of public relations tools and may be biased.
  




• CEO Blogs
  Blogging among CEOs is becoming popular nowadays although there are some debates on whether CEOs have to blog or not.

Corporate blogging has become the new marketing communication tool for companies because it is a way of promoting relating to the products/services of the companies. (The posts and comments can reach and follow easily through generally structured conversation threads and centralized hosting.)

Moreover, it can be more accessible by executives since the corporate blogging are an “unparalleled information gathering mechanism”. It can reduce the costs for the organizations in searching and gathering ideas and thoughts through the blogs.

The organizations also can decrease the time in responding to employees’ or customers’ valuable and important enquiries and feedback. They can view the blogs immediately after the comments/enquiries/feedbacks being posted and interacting with customers/employees more efficiency. Through corporate blogging, customers’/employees’ satisfaction will increase as they know that their comments are concerned by the organization.

Furthermore, corporate blogging is a form of advertising for companies because customers will review and go through the blog frequently to update themselves with the new information of the companies. This has become an advertisement to customers indirectly because variety of information available in the blogs. It makes the companies easy to meet potential customers and increase their sales. Through corporate blogging, organizations are also able to enhance the trustworthiness and boost up their credentials. This is why it has become a success marketing communication tool for the companies.


However, by using corporate blogging, there are several risks for the companies. Corporate blogging might make it easy to breach information security; defamation and invasion of privacy; and loss of company confidentiality. Besides, customers/employees will expect that the companies will update the blog regularly. However, to writing a blog, companies have to spending more time and incur more costs to it which may cause the companies to incur about $800billion in productivity every year. It is very costing for the companies.

In conclusion, the corporate blogging is a very successful communication tool in delivering the message/information of the companies since it has brought more benefits even though the risks come along with it. Thus, the companies have to maintain corporate blogging by eliminating the potential risks in order to communicate effectively with their customers and employees.

The followings are the top 15 popular Corporate blogs [Tachnorati ranked]- May 2008

15 Most Popular Corporate Blogs (Technorati ranked) – May 2008
#1. Google – Authority: 8492
#2. Adobe – Authority: 1797
#3. Flickr – Authority: 1744
#4. Facebook – Authority: 1478
#5. Yahoo! Search – Authority: 1130
#6. Dell – Authority: 799
#7. Digg – Authority: 641
#8. LinkedIn – Authority: 591
#9. Ask – Authority: 364
#10. General Motors – Authority: 364
#11. Yahoo! – Authority: 297
#12. Delta – Authority: 252
#13. Kodak – Authority: 105
#14. Monster – Authority: 73
#15. Boeing – Authority: 67
Source: New PR Wiki, provides the listing of corporate blogs.






For more information about corporate blogging, can visit following website:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/08/15-companies-that-really-get-corporate-blogging/
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi?fortune_500_business_blogging_wiki



Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/top-15-corporate-blogs-ranked-may-2008/

Holding credit card is like a sign of fashion nowadays. It is almost like a necessity rather than a luxury. This caused a lots of people have a serious problem with credit card debt due to most of them having more than one credit card with a balance. A credit card is same as what it means as, it is a card that you are able to use it by credit. Each time you use it, it will increase your debts and may causes you have credit card debt problem.
Now, let us look at the causes of credit card debt. There are Top 10 causes of credit card debt summarized at this website - http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/debt_manage_2004/top-10-causes.asp. I will focus on five causes that I feel they are the top 5 causes for this issue.

1.Income reduced but expenses remain the same.
Due to the increase of oil price, many companies have started to downsizing. One of the methods for downsizing is reduce the salaries/income of employees. Thus, the income of those employees affected will decrease but the expenses need to spend, for example, education fees for children, school fees, daily expenditure and etc will remain the same or even will increase. Most of them will delay bringing expenses in line with a reduction in their income and let the credit card debt to fill the gap.

2.Under employment.
This is quite similar to first cause. People who are experiencing under employment will continue to think positively that their current situations are temporary or they are coming off unemployment. Therefore, they would not decrease their current spending style and go on using the credit card to spend. As a result, spending does not in line with current income, the credit card debt will increase and most probably become worse.

3.Poor money management.
A monthly spending is very important because it provides us an idea that where our money are going. Most of the credit card holders did not have a proper spending plan (poor money management), they may be spending hundreds of dollars on the unnecessarily or luxury merchandises each month. Furthermore, some of them feel that a budget will construct a constricting and disallow them have any freedom on spending.

4.Saving too little or not at all.
We are advised to saving three to six months of living expenses for the event of unexpected expenditures. This is the simplest way to avoid unwanted debt. However, most of the people did not have this good habit; they may save 1-2% of their income or not at all. So, when face the event of emergency for need of money, they will just use their credit card to settle it.

5. Financial illiteracy.
Many people do not know how the money grows and work; how to invest and save for future use, or even why they have to balance their checkbook. This knowledge was not taught in school, their parents also would not have to explain the knowledge to them. So, wrong financial decision will increasing and difficult to resolve it.

The credit card debts can cause a lot of card holders went into bankruptcy. So, prevention is important to solve it. There are several preventions found in several websites:

1.Manage own finances
It is very important to have a savings plan or budget. It can help us to have a plan for money: how to allocate it for various expenses, where it spent, and how much to be saved into a savings account. It also can prevent people from getting into debt by setting a goal with a deadline by help to keep us on track the goals set and put motivators in place.

2.Know the interest rate of credit card
All credit holders are advised to know the interest rate that offered and approved by the credit card issuers and checking the rate on monthly statement. This is because the issuers can increase the rates with or without any reason or warning. It is very important for the emergencies event, such as, cars break down or jobs are lost, may cause holders to put some expenses on the card. If the card holders did not up-to-date with their interest rate, they might end up with paying more interest than they have to.

3.Use credit card like cash, not a credit card.
By using credit card, people cannot physically feel the charges charged. They will continue to purchase by using the credit card until they cannot afford to repay the debt. If treat credit card as cash, you know how much you have and how much you can spent, you will know you cannot afford any purchases when your money is decreased in amounts. This called GREEN FACTOR. By using credit card like cash, you need to be in control of your spending habits and credit card.

4.Pay off smaller balances first.
Most of the card holders will try to pay off their cards with larger balances first. It may make them feel stress and hard to repay the debts in short time. So, pay off the smaller balance first is recommended. This is because it will take less time and the payer will feel a sense of satisfaction when completed their goals and will increase their confidence and then make them easier to settle the higher balances.

5.Early education.
The best method for prevention is teaching youngest generation about money before they are qualified for a credit card. Many statistics show that the students who entering college do not know how to balance a checkbook or having a personal finance class. Besides, for those who graduated, typically enter adulthood with thousands of dollars in student loans and credit card debt. In addition, advertisers markets target more to younger and younger children nowadays. It is essential to teach them about the lure of money and how to manage finances early. It can reduce the rate for children to fall into credit card debt problems when as an adult.

Prevention is better than cure. Thus, take prevention before having a credit card.

Reference:
http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-Credit-Card-Debt-Problems&id=1225936
http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html

Third party certification is a process by which a product or service is reviewed by an independent third party to validate a set of standards, claims or criteria are being met. It provides a measure of conformity, satisfy customer demands and limit supplier risks by eliminating the expense of repeating testing. It is a kind of certification that gives confident to customers to surf internet due to the increased in phishing and spoofing attacks on the internet. For example, it can avoid online users’ computer system being spammed, hacked and attacked by malicious software such as virus, Trojan horse and worms. Besides, it can secure the confidential information of the online users such as IC number, passwords, credit card numbers, telephone number and etc. The most famous application of third party certification programme in Malaysia is provided by MSC Trushgate.com Sdn Bhd.

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd was incorporated on 1999 and is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. Certification Authority (CA) is the body that given the license to operate as a trusted third party in the issuance of digital certifications. The reasons for this incorporation are to meet the growing need for secure network communications and become the catalyst for the development of e-commerce, both locally and across the ASEAN region.

Besides, MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA) which is a Malaysian Law that sets a global precedent for the mandate of a CA. Thus, as a CA, MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd’s core business is providing digital certification services, such as cryptographic products, digital certificates, and software development. For instance, the company has provided solutions and trusted services to help companies to build a secure network and application infrastructure for their electronic communications and transactions over the network. Furthermore, they also delivering high quality services by brought their recognitions with the government, enterprises and e-commerce sites. The example of products and services that provided by MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKard ID, SSL VPN and etc. Furthermore, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd are also is an affiliate of VeriSign in the South East Asia region and a member of VeriSign Trust Network.

The vision of MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is to enable organizations to conduct their business securely over the Internet, as much as what they have been enjoying in the physical world. This is due to the security is the primary concern of entering into the new Internet economy.

In order to help all types of institutions and companies conducting their businesses over the Internet, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd provides the finest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for them. Managed Public Key Infrastructure (MPKI) service is a fully integrated enterprise platform designed to secure intranet, extranet, and Internet applications by combining maximum flexibility, scalability, and performance, with greater security and availability. This service allows enterprise to establish a robust PKI and Certification Authority (CA) system cost-effectively and quickly with complete control over security policies, certificate lifecycle management, authentication models and PKI hierarchies.

The service also enables lower operating costs and faster deployment while providing an open platform that integrates with off-the-shelf solutions. By using this service, many organizations can set up their own multiple digital certification program easily, quickly and economically. They can issue 250 or more digital certificates to partners, customers, employees or supplies. This solution helps to secure online transactions, sign them digitally and control the access to intranets and extranets.

MyKad is designed by government with PKI capability that allows its holder to conduct online transaction with privates sectors and government agencies. MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd had provided MyKey which is the solution that allowing users to authenticate themselves online and to sign documents or to conduct transaction digitally. Moreover, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is the main PKI developer and integrator for MyKad which offered different types of MyKey (MyKad PKI) modules for developers who desires to develop MyKad applications such as MyKey Application Programming Interface (API) and MyKad Client Kit.

About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times each day, it allows companies and consumers all over the world to engage in trusted communications and commerce through its SSL, identity and authentication, and domain name services. It has the ability to know and trust the parties with due to doing business and communicate in the networked world has become critical.

Besides, VeriSign internet infrastructure has become the heart of the Internet by protecting valuable data and enabling key transactions. This is because VeriSign has facilitates 50 billion authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) queries a day since 1998 with 100% availability. It also intends to increase the capacity of the .com and .net DNS by 10 times by 2010 to provide the stability and security required for global online transaction. It has issued 2 million VeriSign® Identity Protection (VIP) credentials to consumers for strong authentication on a network of leading Web sites so that consumers will feel confident when the conduct online business transaction.

VeriSign SSL Certificates is the public encrypted key that Webmaster sends to CA which is a standard part of most web browser packages and web server when works with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. It is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority under MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd which enables the security of communications, e-commerce and interactions for websites, extranets and internets. It means that VeriSign is used to enhance the security of server of the website and providing security solutions to protect organization’s consumers, website, networks and brand. It also increases customers’ confidence in conducting online business transaction due to the increased phishing and spoofing attacks on the Internet. VeriSign also will protects the organization’s website and make it easier for the visitors build trust on the organization because the encryption of sensitive information during online transaction is enabled .Each of it has unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner which his or her identity will be verified by Certificate Authority when it is issued.

Digital certificate is usually attached to an e-mail message or an embedded program in a web page in order to verify that user or website is who they claim to be. The general functions of digital certificate are user authentication, encryption and digital signatures. User authentication will provide security by using username and password. Encryption will make the data transmission secured through the information encrypted. So, recipient of the data is the person who only can receive the message. Digital signatures are like the hand signature in the digital world which can ensure the integrity of the data. Therefore, the users will conduct online transaction confidently without fear of the personal data being stolen, transacting party denying any commercial commitments and information corrupted by third parties. Moreover, the digital certificate can assist in the development of internet based activities.

In conclusion, by applying the 3rd party certification is secured for e-shopping and enhance the trust and confident to the organizations’ website and products..




Reference:

http://msctrustgate.com/about_us.htm
http://www.mykey.com.my/Website/home.php
http://www.verisign.com/corporate/information/index.html
https://www.msctrustgate.com/product/mpki.htm

There are many dot-com failures which are pet.com, mvp.com, boom.com and etc. The dot-com failure that will be discussed here is Webvan.com.

Webvan.com was founded in 1999 by Louis Borders. It was a website that sold groceries such as bread and vegetables in the US. It had spent around $1bn within 18 months to build its own infrastructure to deliver groceries in a number of cities, spent almost half of a billion by going public and bought over one of its largest competitors-HomeGrocer. However, by 2001, it had announced went into bankruptcy and caused 2,000 its employees lost their jobs.


There are many reasons for Webcan.com failures:

1) An incorrect business model
The company was presumed that it was a technology business and not a grocery business.

2) Lack of management experience
Webcan.com was an online super-market but it was run by consultant, officers and directors who lack of management knowledge and retail food experience in the supermarket industry. Even its CEO George Shaheen did not have little or no food related experience and its founders, Louis Borders was an expert in selling book, but books do not expire or spoil.

3) Lack of understanding of the sociology and psychology of retailing food
Webvan.com’s management did not understand the style of consumers shop for foods. Most of the consumers like to go to supermarkets to look at, feel and touch the merchandise. They like to speak to the grocer, wine department manager or butcher to negotiate the price or get more information about the merchandise. Besides, Webvan.com tried to implement a total customer satisfaction model by delivery the merchandise ordered to customers within 30 minutes. However, they did not consider that many working customers would like their groceries to be delivered at home at night.

4) Erroneous target marketings
Webvan.com had targeted on wrong customers, it targeted on soccer moms and upscale suburban families. The most obvious potential customers for Webvan’s services were senior citizens, mothers with very young children, college students, handicapped individuals and late-night workers.

5) Lack of demographic understanding
Webvan.com’s major warehouses were located in Atlanta and Los Angeles, where the citizen are used to driving and rather drive to a shop or a store to get the groceries than to wait for delivery at home. Only those couples who both work and who hailed from congested metropolitan areas suited to Webvan.com’s idea.


Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan
http://www.turnaround.org/Publications/Articles.aspx?objectID=1802
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49296926-6,00.htm

My name is Gan Chui Wei, from BAC 11, year 3 sem 1 student(Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman at Sungai Long). I'm taking E-commerce for this semester, so I and my group members(Chew Pei Ni, Steven Chua Tian Huat, Chang Onn Yew) have to create blog and posts here. Hope you guys can enjoy our posts that posted at here.

At first, i would like to introduce myself to you all. My name is Chui Wei, can call me Angel. My hometown named Tanjog Karang, located between Sekinchan and Kuala Selangor. It takes about 2 hours if travel by car from Sungai Long to my hometown. My hobbies are online, listen music,read book, and sleep. The top 5 websites that i visited the most are: Facebook, WBLE, Dygod, Friendster and Google. I like to visit Facebook and Friendster because i can find my secondary and primary friends and contact them through these websites. For Dygod, i can download movie and Hong Kong's series that are the latest to watch. By searching Wble and Google, i can download some notes from wble and search information for my assignment and thesis. My top 5 internet activities are search information for my study, download movie, playing restaurant city and pet society on Facebook, read news from online newspaper and searching for latest songs.

As a year 3 student, i started my research project with the topic "Examinig Malaysian consumer's perception toward investing in Islamic banking". Anyone if have any additional or relevant information about this area, can send e-mail (gcw329@hotmail.com) to me or leave your information at comment box. Thanks for helping me.

Hope you all can enjoy posts that posted by my group members and me.

Chui Wei