Threat of online security:HOw safe is our Data ?

Online security is a kind of defense strategy to ensure that the data in our computer is not being grant access unless through authorization by hackers, furthermore avoid virus attacks. These method of prevention no longer can guarantee that our data is safe.

Threats of online security:
1.Worm
Worm is a self-reproducing until it interupts the whole computer system. The examples of worms are Blaster, Sasser, Bagle and Code red which are all causing interruption to the windows systems.

2. Computer virus
Computer virus is actually a kind of computer software that can copy itself to any computer without permission of the user. The examples of computer virus is "I love you".

3. Trojan Horse

The terms trojan horse comes from a Greek Myth. Trojan Horse is a kind of Malware which allows hackers to grant access to computers without any authorization. The examples of threats which can be perform are uploading and downloading files from the computer.

4. Identity theft
Identity theft occurs when there is criminal who uses other person's identity as their own identity. It can also incluse misuse the identity of cresit card and mail fraud.

5. Denial-of-service attack
Denial-of-service attack is an attempt to to make computer resource unavailable for its user. It usually slows down network performance, unavailability of certain websites or inability to access to some websites.

Methods use to prevent threat to the online security to make sure that our data is safe.

1. Firewall
Firewall is a system which limits network access between two or more networks. However firewall cannot prevent virus from spreading to the computer systems.

2. Virus defense
Anti virus softwares are use to detect and terminate virus before it spread to our computer system. Unfortunately, anti virus sofware cannot prevent every type of virus as we know virus nowadays are keep on transforming and there are difficulties for the software engineer to create new virus defense. Therefore, data may also be destroyed.

Review a local, transactional E-commerce website

The local, transactional e-commerce websites that i want to review is the website of Golden Screen Cinema. Golden Screen Cinema is well-known for its quality of their mega halls and services of their staffs. There are approximately 24 outlets of GSC throughout Malaysia. Which means thousands and thousands of people would log on to the website to check out what is the latest movie and etcits

The websites with many fixtures, such as we can check for the show times of movies available 24/7, membership sign in section is for members to log in and we can book out tickets so that we could avoid long queue. Sometimes, espically on satruday and sunday, there are a lot of people going for movie, there need to wait for a long queue. So the websites has made our job easy and we can collect our tickets before the movie starts without any queuing.

For this website, there aso have the e-payment tutorial to teach and help the consumer that do not know to purchase ticket on website.
There is a cineplex which is newly opened in Tropicana City, through website, we can get the free screening coupon and enjoy the new and luxurious environment for a movie.
The website also provise us the map showing us how to get to the cinema so that tourist will not get lost when want to get to the cinema.
As a conclusion, GSC website is a well known transactional website in Malaysia. The websites is very convinient for Malaysian citizens to check the showtimes and save their time with the help of the online booking system.

For more information, please log on to www.gsc.com.my .

A Discussion On E-learning Offered In Malaysian Universities: Pros And Cons Form The Students Perspective

What is E-learning?

Electronic learning (or E-Learning or eLearning) is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. Often the medium of instruction is through computer technology, particularly involving digital technologies. E-learning has been defined as "pedagogy empowered by digital technology". In some instances, no face- to- face interaction takes place. E-learning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts. In companies, it refers to the strategies that use the company network to deliver training courses to employees. In the United States, it is defined as a planned teaching/learning experience that uses a wide spectrum of technologies, mainly Internet or computer-based, to reach learners. Lately in most Universities, e-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or programmes of study where the students rarely, if ever, attend face-to-face for on-campus access to educational facilities, because they study online.

There is no doubt that technology gives us effective communication alternatives, which in some cases, can be better than attending a boring lecture in a crowded hall, and having to travel to class every day. In spite of all the hype surrounding online degree programs and e-learning, it is important to see this phenomenon for both its pros and cons.

Pros of E-learning from students perspective:

1. Effective Distribution of Information

In most modern universities, a ‘paperless’ environment is not just a myth. It is already being practiced on daily basis. It is certainly okay for the students to take notes while the professor is talking, and then later asking your seniors for their notes so that you can have enough study material. But it is seen to be less effective. It is much better when the lecturer can upload the following day’s lecture notes in the course web page. Students can then access these materials, print them out, and be prepared for tomorrow’s lecture. This helps them to listen more effectively to the information that is being passed on from the professor, without having to scramble to jot down notes. Since students can access these materials at any time, there is also no issue if they need to get these materials again at a later date.

2. Save on Administration Costs

E-learning is favored by both public and private universities, as well as colleges because it helps them to reduce their administration costs. In fact, for every course offered by the college, there only need to be one master document, which is uploaded to the server or web page, and protected by a firewall or anti-virus software. That is the cost occurred for the administration to implement a new subject, aside from tutor fees and utilities. The students do all printing, and the lecturer updates the course modules. With this system in place, the college can offer the course to thousands of new students without spending even one Ringgit more. They can even reduce the lecture hours since most of the materials are available anytime. Therefore, it makes sense for educational institutions to favor e-learning. Even though the initial cost or setting up the servers and software may be a lot, in time to come these costs can easily be recovered by increasing the intake of students.

3. Increase the reach of Educational Institutions

E-learning enables universities and colleges to go beyond big cities and towns when recruiting new students. With the Internet, any student, anywhere in the country, is a possible enrollee. As long as the student is able to pay for the course, and has the basic facilities such as a personal computer, a printer and an Internet connection, it does not even matter if he lives in an isolated island or mountain without regular transportation. Such is the power on communication technology (ICT), as it allows people from remote areas to get access to important information, and increasing their opportunity of getting a better education.

With e-learning, some institutions even go beyond the country, into other neighboring countries. It makes sense for both the student and the institution. For example, it a student in Cambodia wants to take a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art, he may discover that a Malaysian college offers something that is attractive, and affordable to him. What is more, they even allow him to learn online, without having to pay for flight tickets and expensive accommodation. This is indeed a very good deal, which would not be so attractive without the flexibility offered by e-learning. While the advantages are obvious, the disadvantages need a little more scrutiny to be visible to us.

Cons of E-learning from students perspective:

1. Lack of Human Interaction

Learning is traditionally a process of passing information from one human being to another, such as from teacher to student, from father to son or from one friend to another. Even though knowledge can be put in books, CD-ROMs, the Internet and e-books, the special part played by a human voice and face can never truly be replaced. For example, we have all read instruction books on how to do many things. Even though these books or manuals may be easy to understand and gives every detail you need to know, almost everyone can testify that it makes more sense when a human being instructs them on how to do it. You can buy a book on how to cook, go through the details, and get a lot of information. However, you can only really understand when you attend a show or a cooking class by the author or another cooking expert. That is because not every type of knowledge can be written down and passed around. There is this thing called experience, which can only be passed on from one person to another through face-to-face interaction. Learning, at some point, involves getting a mentor or role model, and learning though their knowledge and experience.

2. Abuse and Misuse of Technology

When something is digital in format, it means that it operates on certain rules, codes and definitions. If these rules can be modified or changed, it will produce a completely different result. This is the perfect setting for con men and dishonest people who prefer to break the rules and cheat their way to success. Throughout Malaysia, there have been many cases of students who manage to break though online or intranet securities set by the university, and actually change their results or get a preview of the final examination questions. As a result of this, students play a cat and mouse game with the administration, who are always working hard to outsmart students and cover any loopholes in their system. Due to the nature of anything digital, small mistakes can cause very big problems for the student body and the administration.

3. Lack of Motivation and Effort Among Students

One of the biggest arguments about e-learning is that it makes students lazy and ineffective, due to being spoon fed by the educational institutions. With e-learning, most educational task is done either by the tutor or some sophisticated software, leaving students with the simple task of just downloading notes and reading them. Although this may make the learning process easier and more effective, it also runs the risk of creating dependent and lazy students. When these students graduate and enter the working class, they tend to expect all the information to be delivered to them, too. This time around, they may find that they need to aggressively seek information for themselves or be left behind fast. Since these students are so used to being spoon fed, they become cripples in the working environment, unable to move forward without constant help from others.


Related Links:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_learning
2.http://virtualcampus.wordpress.com/2004/05/01/e-learning-in-malaysian-educational-institutions/

E-Government in Malaysia

E-Government a.k.a. electronic government, digital government or online government. E-Government uses of the information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transaction, and interactions with citizens, businesses as well as other government sectors. Malaysia have implemented E-Government since 1996 which was initiated by Multimedia Super Corridoor(MSC) by Malaysian Government. The application of this system tends to imrpove the government operations internally and externally thus how its delivery services to the citizens where enabling government, businesses and citizens to work together for the benefits of Malaysia and of all its citizens. The followings indicate the 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II) is an online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national programs from project application to approval to implementation. The objectives of SPP II are:
   - To support and monitor the entire lifecycle of Malaysi's 5-Year develoment program.
   - To have quality projects
   - To provide platform for exchanging ideas and demostrating best practices models in project implementation
2. Human Resouce Management Information System (HRMIS) act as an integrated, technology-enabled HRMIS for Malaysian Public Service. The main objectives of HRMIS are:
   - Effective staffing and right-sizing of civil service
   - Up-to-data consolidated HR data for effective information planning
   - Improving paperless HRM capabilities
3. Generic Office Environment (GOE) is a powerful document and office management solution that enable users to effectively and efficienly their office environment.
4. Electronic Procurement (EP) is used to re-engineer, transform and automate the current procurement system such as contral contract, direct purchase and tender. EP also increase tranparency, time and cost saving while encouraging suppliers to go electronic and join the K-Economy.


5. Electronic Services Directory (E-services) provides a platform for the citizens to make transactions with the government and utilities payment. For example, Telecom Malaysia (TM) enabled citizens to make their payment through online.
6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX) improves the mobilization of human resources and optimize work force utilization through systematic matching of job seekers to job vacancies.
7. E-Syariah is implemented to improve the quality of service in Syariah Courts.
   

For more information please refer to:
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073046901815

An Example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

D0t-Com Company. It is a company that doing his buisness mostly by through the internet. Their internet link is Kibu.com. Kibu.com is founded at 1999. It was targeting teenage young girls between 13-18 years old and focusing on fashion, music, beauty, college and sport. Despite having US$22 million in funding from high-profile investors which included Jim Clark of Netscape fame, Kibu officials admitted bad market conditions for advertising-based business models convinced management and the investors to shut down the site.

The failure of Kibu.com was just like one of the many overfunded and under thought out initiatives in the kids and teens market. The massive amount of funding and low overhead costs might be one of the causes because most people learnt that running a dot-com was not that hard. However, poor management in a company causes crash and burn whether it's in sanitation or manufacturing or online. 46 days of operations were also not enough for getting the notice of targeted users.

Although kids market is profitable but the failure of Kibu.com was most probably caused by the mismanagement which leaded the company to shutting down. Its timing in financial markets could not have been worse.

The information is get from the link :

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/kibucom-kloses-2000103/

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-246440.html

Electronic Currency

What is Electronic Currency?

Electronic currency, also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency, refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Electronic currency allows its holder to buy the goods and services that the vastness of the internet offers. An e-currency system may be fully backed by gold (like e-gold and c-gold), non-gold backed, or both gold and non-gold baked (like e-Bullion and Liberty Reserve).

Electronic currency trading can let you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. In fact, some of the experts will suggest the beginners to start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes of electronic currency. Besides that, electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that will eat up your profit with a huge amount of fees, it allows you to do business with minimal fees and give you more profit and money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency tradings such as MG E-currency, JT GOLD.com.

While electronic money has been an interesting problem for cryptography, to date, use of digital cash has been relatively low-scale. One rare success has been Hong Kong's Octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used electronic cash system. Singapore also has an electronic money implementation for its public transportation system (commuter trains, bus, etc), which is very similar to Hong Kong's Octopus card and based on the same type of card (FeliCa). There is also one implementation in the Netherlands, known as Chipknip.

Major Electronic Currency Vendors

Firstgate's Click and Buy

In 1999 Norbert Stangl founded FIRSTGATE Internet AG. The Internet payment system ClickandBuy, a full-service solution for e-payment and billing, was launched in 2000. After a successful start - ClickandBuy saw numerous launches in other markets - ClickandBuy is now available all over Europe, in the US and in Asia. ClickandBuy International Limited is headquartered in London.

Firstgate works with about 3,000 providers of articles, information, games, and other content and has 2.5 million customers, mostly in Europe.For security, Firstgate uses passwords and secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption and also records the IP addresses of buyers' machines for reference in case problems occur.

The company charges content providers an up-front fee—which varies based on the complexity of the project—for set-up, integration, and consulting. Firstgate then tailors its systems with business rules for each participating merchant.The company bills buyers' credit cards, debit cards, or phone accounts, once they have accrued a few dollars in charges. North American customers can buy material via a charge to their bank accounts.

Firstgate aggregates consumer micropurchases across merchants to enable a single processing of multiple transactions, explained Chief Operating Officer Ed Burrell. "This reduces processing costs, per-purchase credit card fees, and administration," he explained. Firstgate then remits money to merchants via checks or bank transfers.

Payloadz

PayLoadz is a leading online marketplace for digital downloadable goods.They enable tens of thousands of customers to sell digital goods such as videos, video games, ebooks, software and templates to a large audience of buyers from our online store. Payloadz play a leadership role in this exciting market and continually strive to provide a dynamic and seamless selling experience for their users.

The explosive growth in online commerce has moved into the realm of digital goods and assets. Demand is increasing for digital goods such as videos, ebooks, music, video games, software, design templates, etc. Payloadzgoal is to create a dynamic online marketplace and platform in which users sell their digital goods to interested buyers in a seamless efficient way.

They have made substantial progress in the past four years and today they are one of the leading “go to” sites for downloadable digital goods. Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity is our motto. Their site is easy to use (for both buyers and sellers) and offers a straight forward pricing model.

PayLoadz works with about 1,000 merchants and generates about $3 million per year in revenue, explained founder and lead developer Shannon Sofield.

Rather than having prepaid accounts with PayLoadz, users pay sellers directly through PayPal, which also verifies that the buyers have enough money in their accounts to make the purchase. Merchants pay PayLoadz a flat monthly fee based on their sales levels, rather than a percentage of each transaction.

PayLoadz delivers files via a secure server to the customer using PayPal's Instant Payment Notification system, which lets vendors integrate PayPal with their back-end operations. Buyers never see a PayLoadz interface.

The PayLoadz system consists of an application server that hosts the Web site and handles transaction processing, a file storage and delivery server, and a database server. Separating the components into servers tuned for specific roles improves performance and reliability, Sofield said.For security, PayLoadz uses SSL with 128-bit RC4 encryption.

Paystone Technology

Customers in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Europe can access Web content after setting up prepaid Paystone accounts by mailing funds directly to the company using their bank's bill payment service or by depositing cash at any Bank of America branch.
Merchants that sell content via Paystone create links to the e-micropayment system. Customers follow the links, enter their Paystone password, and are redirected back to the content they want to purchase. For security, Paystone uses 128-bit SSL encryption.

Peppercoin

Peppercoin is a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. Peppercoin Inc. was a company that offers services based on the peppercoin method.The peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest and first presented at the RSA Conference in 2002 (although it had not yet been named.) The core idea is to bill one randomly selected transaction a lump sum of money rather than bill each transaction a small amount. It uses "universal aggregation", which means that it aggregates transactions over users, merchants as well as payment service providers. The random selection is cryptographically secure -- it cannot be influenced by any of the parties. It is claimed to reduce the transaction cost per dollar from 27 cents to "well below 10 cents."

Peppercoin, Inc. was a privately held company founded in late 2001 by Micali and Rivest based in Waltham, MA. It has secured about $15M in venture capital in two rounds of funding. Its services have seen modest adoption. Peppercoin collects 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant. Peppercoin, Inc. was bought out in 2007 by Chockstone for an undisclosed amount.

Buyers at participating Web sites who want to use Peppercoin see the e-micropayment technology's interface, which looks like a common credit card interface, noted Bob Nix, the company's vice president of engineering.

The application's new version, Peppercoin 2.0, doesn't require pre-enrollment or predeposit of funds. Consumers just enter their credit or debit card information with the merchant online as usual, and Peppercoin processes the transaction.As picture below shows, the application uses a universal aggregation technique to efficiently process many small interactions between multiple consumers and merchants as a few large transactions.

The company uses RSA BSAFE software to provide encryption and digital signing capabilities for the security of a buyer's information and the transaction's integrity. Digital signatures can authenticate a message's sender's identity and verify that no one has altered the original content.To reduce overhead on small transactions, Peppercoin uses an online self-service customer-service module.

Digicash

The name of one man stands out way above anyone else in the history of DigiCash: David Chaum, US citizen, born into a wealthy family, brilliant mathematician and one who had to always have things his own way. After travelling around the world he ended up in Amsterdam in the late 80's. Here, he became head of the cryptography department of the CWI (Centre of Mathematics and Information Science). Cryptography is the science of encoding and decoding of data, in order to maintain privacy. Chaum had built a big reputation in this field in the previous few years. Insiders estimated he was in the top 5 of the world at the time.

At the CWI, they also worked on electronic payment systems. In the early 90s, Rijkswaterstaat became interested as they were thinking about introducing automatic toll-collection roads. Chaum got together a few researchers, mainly from earlier contacts with the university of Eindhoven. All guys who knew each other through a "young researchers" programme sponsored by Philips. They had all spent their youth programming behind a computer. Enthusiastically they started, and within little over a week the job was done.

Rijkswaterstaat was satisfied and the team got another assignment. That was the moment when Chaum smelt money. Why couldn't he turn the patents he claimed in the 80s into money? On the 21st of April, 1990, the company DigiCash first saw light of day. Unfortunately Rijkswaterstaat decided to put the advanced system on the shelf and to continue with the old standby, number plate recognition. Chaum could have divested himself of the company and continued his work at the CWI, but he had apparently tasted the forbidden fruit of business. He decided to market his research other ways: smart cards, point-of-sale applications, cash registers and tele-banking. Of course, he had to quit his job at the CWI because of the risk of conflict of interest.

Financing of the company was done privately by the American. Former DigiCash employees agree that Chaum and his wealthy family had at least contributed a few million.

It all started out quite nicely. The brand new company sold a smart card for closed systems which was a cash-cow for years. It was at this time that the first irritants appeared. Even if you are a brilliant scientist, that doesn't mean you are a good manager. David Chaum was a control freak, someone who couldn't delegate anything to anyone else, and insisted upon watching over everybody's shoulders. "That resulted in slowing down research," explains an ex-DigiCash employee who wished to remain anonymous. "We had a lot of half-finished product. He continuously changed his mind about where things were headed."

This drove a few people crazy and it didn't take long before the first few turned their back and started their own company. In 1992 Boudewijn de Kerf and Eduard de Jong quit the company and went to Silicon Valley where they invented and sold an operating system to Sun Microsystems for a substantial sum.

Digicash’s mission is to create a new personalized dimension to the shopping experience. They transform online incentives into powerful new tools, establishing a strong, high-value connection between consumers and ecommerce companies. The Digicash Wallet, Digicash first product, gives merchants a revolutionary new approach for initiating real-time, value-creating coupons and promotions to increase sales, margins, and customer loyalty.

Consumers are embracing the Digicash Wallet because it’s fun, easy, convenient and personalized to their shopping needs. Capture the benefit of rising coupon usage without sacrificing profits!

Related links:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercoin
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money
3.http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/electronic-currency/
4.http://www.clickandbuy.com/US/en/company/firmenprofil.html
5.http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/abs/html/mags/co/2004/08/r8019.htm
6.http://www.digicash.com/index.php#
7.http://www.jya.com/digicrash.htm
8.https://www.payloadz.com/aboutus.asp

The application of pre-paid cash card for customers

Since entering modern age, transactional cards have been used to replace currency business trading. Why people prefer to use card more then using cash during doin a business? Due to its flexibility, card is much more compatible when doing a big business (require huge investment or money or large amount of payment). Transaction card is much convinience, instead of carrying a few million dollars of cash why not just a card contains of millions of dollars in your bank account.


However, pre-paid cash card have much similarity to original transaction card when offering the ability to purchase products and services, it even looks just like a credit or debit card. But, the main advantage about a pre-paid cash card is that you oly get to spend the balance that you have preloaded into the card meaning that risking nothing into debts as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

Money inside your pre-paid card can be loaded by cash at bank, Post office, PayPoint terminals or via bank transfer. But not all of these loading options are provided by the providers. In Malaysia, Touch 'n Go appeared to be carried out some function just like a pre-paid cash card where it give the holders the efficiency and time saving when paying a toll. There are many advantages you can find through the application of the pre-paid cash card.

1. No debt risk since with a prepaid cash card, you are limited to spend only the amount you put in your card.


2. Control on spending of either youself or your children. Like a credit card, you will get a full breakdown of spending on the card so you can see what has been purchased, who from and when.


3. The right card to travel. For any holidaymaker, prepaid cards offer a good alternative to travellers' cheques. They are much safer and offer a better exchanges as you spend.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

What is third party certification programme?

Third Party Certification (TPC) or Certificate authorities (CA) is actually a a third party that developed to secure personal data from leaking through surfing any website or by making any transaction online such as making currency payment, uploading personal information and etc. Internet users must be total awared of fraud as well as information security, this is where TPC comes in. MSC Trustgate appear to be one of the TPC program applied in Malaysia since 1999.

However, Trustgate offers a complete security solution that needed by the e-commerce businesses wherein securing their information as well as personal data and customers valuable data. As CA, the core business of Trusgate is to provide digital certification services, including digital certificates, and cryptographic products, Managed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI - enhance organization's security of data thus managing the identification credential from users and organization), Personal ID, My Trust, MyKad ID, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development.

MyKad PKI
MyKey is a digital certificate that loaded into MyKad. The enrollment of this programme is accepted in Malaysia since 1997. MyKey provide highest protection for your data and transaction online and reliance limit for fraud protection.

Furthermore, Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) also appear to be one of the best solution to build Internet users' trust. During having an online negotiation or trasaction, SSL CA provides security of confidential communications and identifies individuals and websites on the Internet uniquely by serving as a sort of digital passport or credential.

VeriSign SSL Certificates is the public encrypted key that Webmaster sends to CA, which will then review on the credentials and check through all the background of the organization to ensure that the claim of organization before issuing any server certificates. VeriSign is one of the most trusted brand on Internet where it further enhanced the operation of e-commerce by giving Internet users more confidence to communicate and do transaction online.

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Nowadays corporate blogging has become a new marketing communication tool for an organization during this technology age and it is not only for personal usage. The corporate blogging is widely used by an organization for business purpose. It has become the hottest communication tool on the web.

Google is one of the company had implemented a corporate blog in year 2004. This blog used in sharing all information about Google with people and visitors can leave their own comment or feedback about the services are provided. Besides that, it can divide to two types which are internal blog and external blog. An internal blog is accessed through the corporation’s intranet. It allows employees can communicate with each other and share their information or experience which can help them in complete task and work within organization. It also improves the communication between different department and layers of management.

The external blog is a blog can be view by public and let people leave their comment in the blog. This is one of the effective ways that organization can collect the feedback from the customers. Not only this, organization using this blog to communicate with outsiders about corporation events such as press releases, updating new product or service, announcements and so on. It will help in building better relationship with the outside of organization.

Pros:

1. Easy to set up
2. Dialogue with customers
3. Marketing with low overheads
4. Stopping rumors spread
5. Proper medium for customer feedback

Cons:

1. Requires strong written communication skills
2. Privacy concern
3. Time-consuming to maintain
4. Negative comment
5. Loss of control over the message

For Further information, please refer to following links:
http://www.wayneliew.com/10-benefits-business-blogging/
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7770488/Top-10-Risks-for-Corporate-Blogs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog

Mobile Payment System in Malaysia

Mobile payment appeared to be a new alternative payment method in nowaday econmy. This rapidly-adopting method is used widely in Asia and Europe. Instead paying anything with cash, cheque and credit cards, a consumer can use mobile phone to pay for wide range of service and digital or hard goods. The followings indicate the major methods for mobile payment:

1. Premium SMS based transactional payments - in this model, payment is made by consumers via SMS text message to a short code and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill.


2. Direct Moble Biling - a true alternative payment mehtod that does not require the use of credit/debit cards or pre-registration at online payment such as PayPal.


3. Mobile Web Payment (WAP) - where consumer uses web pages displayed or additional downloaded application and installed into her mobile phone to make payment. It uses WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) as underlying technology.

Mobile Money (MM) is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd where in adopted by Malaysia since Fubruary 2005. In order to pay using MM, shopper must either a savings, current or credit card account with participating banks (Hong Leong Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank by envery month end.

The advantages of using mobile payment:

1. Conviniency of payment through just a click on the phone. Physical presence to the place is not necessary.


2. Easy to complement to cash, easily reacheable especially during emergencies.

Beside MM payment system, another company in Malaysia also apply the mobile payment as well that is Maxis. Maxis launched a system call Maxis FastTap which is an integrated mobile payment service that utilises near-field communication (NFC) technology.

For more information about mobile payment: http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp