.:. e-commerce .:.

A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog

2009-07-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, most of the people would like to purchase goods through internet as the price would be different and it is convenient for the consumers. However, online purchasing is not 100% safety. Many people, especially teenagers had been cheated when they performed online purchasing. Some companies will attempt to deceive consumers by displaying cheaper products online in order to attract and seudce people to make a transaction with them. After the consumers made the payment, they won’t receive the goods they had ordered. Thus, it was very important for us to be more cautions while buying goods featured on the internet.

In fact, it is advisable that consumers should purchases goods in well-known website such as ebay, amazon and so on. In the other words, don’t make a big deal in the website you are not familiar.

Besides that, customers should look at the online merchant's refund/return and customer privacy policies and beware of online merchants who do not prominently display refund/return or privacy policies.

On the other hands, customers would look for the security alert and the lock icon when making online purchases through Internet Explorer, which will pop up "security alert" when you connect with a secure server. Moreover, consumers may look for the addresses that start with “https” which means that the information you fill out in an ordering form will be encrypted and securely connect to the merchant.

In conclusion, due to the development in technology, online purchasing becomes popular and well-like. However, there are a lot of traps in internet and users should be aware of it and be cautious while performing online purchasing.

*http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Legal*

Corporate blog: the new marketing communicating tool for companies

2009-07-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

Corporate blog is an effective communicate medium that used by organization to meet their organization goals. Corporate blog enable organization to interact with customer more directly and respond immediately to their question.

There are few TYPE of corporate blog:

Internal blog
This is the blog where just can access through the organization intranet by any employee.

External blog
This kind of blog is publicly. It’s usually used by organization when there is a release of new product and responds to the customer question.

CEO blog
This is the discussion blog among the CEO

Steve Rubel , a vice president of client services at CooperKatz& Co is an expert in blogging and he has suggested a FOUR step formula :

1. find influencers in the subject matter.

2. Listen to people, recognize their needs, and subscribe to other blogs to better understand the customer

3. engage people in dialogue through email and have a blog to join in the discussion

4. give people authority, which helps bloggers achieve their goals while creating loyalty customers

Advantages :

deliver a company message to customer more directly

get faster feedback from customer through blog

enable organization more understand the customer needs

more participation of employee in discussion

Disadvantages:

employee may reveal too much organization information to customer

hard to predict the reaction of the customer

hard to manage : debate between customer and employee

A blog of car company

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

2009-07-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

E-government (also known as electronic government) is a diffused neologism used to refer to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.

Many countries are implementing e-government including Malaysia. The implementation of e-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by the Malaysia Government in 1996. It has improved both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. In addition, it seek to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses, at the same time, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

“Roadmap for a tech enabled government” is one of the visions of Malaysia Vision 2020. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

There are 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application:

Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
Generic Office Environment (GOE)
Electronic Procurement (EP)
Electronic Services (E-Services)
Electronic Labour Exchange (ELCX)
E-Syariah

Government-to-Citizens

The Government-to-Citizen (G2C) relationship refers to services provides to fulfill citizens’ needs. Citizens seek more reliable and accessible services from the public sector. This implies that citizens should be able to carry out variety of tasks that involves multiple agencies, from a single access point. Increased interactions between government and citizens encourage citizens to become more participative thus allowing the government to respond to their needs more effectively. This category of relationship desires electronic services and infrastructure.

The myGovernment portal (http://www.malaysia.gov.my) acts as one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for the citizens. Below are some online access services provided by government to citizens:

Electronic driver’s license issuance and renewal
Integrated passport and visa processing
Electronic tax payment and processing
Smart traffic fine payment
Electronic road tax and vehicle registration
Electronic EPF/SOCSO management
Easy employment licensing/permitting
Electronic IC renewal
Electronic quit rent processing and payment
Smart commercial vehicle licensing/permitting
Electronic pension processing
Integrated low cost housing management
On-line consumer information
On-line health information
Electronic public complains information
Electronic school/higher education registration
Electronic polling/survey

There are some recent surveys about e-government adoption in Malaysia, stated that the usage of e-government service is growing but at a small pace. In 2003, only 15% of Malaysian has used the Internet to access online government services compared to 12% in year 2002. In addition, there are some challenges faced by government in adoption of e-government services. The main challenge in e-government in Malaysia is the technological change, which includes issues such as standards, data integration, legacy maintenance and privacy and security. The key priority is to improve the core government applications and integrating more services across agencies. Simultaneously, market the e-government services to the public and businesses.

Review a local site - Blooming.com.my

2009-07-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

www.blooming.com.my is the local e-commerce site that has been established in Malaysia and began operations since 1981; it has been grown from a small retail shop to its present set-up five retail outlet and now with its e-commerce operation. It allows the Internet users to have online Internet trading for the product such as flowers, baskets and etc. There have many types of the flower such as hand bouquets and potted flowers. During the special occasion like Valentine Day, Mother Day, Father Day and so on flower always will be the best choices to show the loves to their beloved. Furthermore, the basket arrangements such as fruits baskets, gourmet baskets and various types of hampers, and snacks such as cookies, cup cakes, cakes, quiches, chocolates, candies, wines and pies and other products.

product of blooming.com.my

Let Blooming Florist be your first choice for

FLOWERS.

Worldwide delivery, satisfaction guaranteed. The delivery of product will be on time and satisfied the customers. The procedures are been stated in the web pages. In addition, this websites provided many sample of the flowers and baskets, customers can choose from the picture show in the websites. Besides that, the price was stated below of each sample, this convenient the customer to make comparison the price of the product. Although, the site design of this website is simple and dullness as it does not emphasizes on the layout and does not draw the attention of the customers but it is having the colorful and unique designs of their products which are quite attractive. Due to the website having a lot of pictures of the products, the download speed is quite slow. This website also provided the floral arrangement tips, floral care, and popular card message and so on to the customers. Moreover, this website is user friendly as it has FAQ (frequently asked questions) section that answers the consumers about the problems relating to placing an order and delivery guidelines. There is no doubt that blooming.com.my was websites that provided the Quality product and Quality services.

www.blooming.com.my

It also provides the search engine to help the users easily find what they are interesting in. Consumers can also choose to shop either by products or by occasions as they have arranged it in their home webpage. There also have the some special promotion for the flowers are stated in the home webpage where this is one of the strategic to attach more customer. Moreover, also provides customer with a secure shopping carts so that customer can shop safely. Customer can verify the product through the VeriSign Secure Site. Consumers can make the payment for the purchases in various ways such as through online credit card, online banking, mobile payment, pay using Kawanku ATM, open bill payment and also cash payment in their retail outlets.

Mobile Payment System in MALAYSIA

2009-07-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEMS in MALAYSIA: Its POTENTIALS and CONSUMERS' ADOPTION STRATEGIES

Mobile payment system(also known as mobile web payments or WAP billing) allow individual to make the payment through their mobile phone, smart phone, Personal Digital Assistant(PDA) or other such device. It can use to purchases either digital or physical goods. Digital product refers to the intangible products that can be transfer over a digital network such as songs, games and wallpaper for mobile phone.

Mobile payment is developing fast in Malaysia such as MobileExec and Mobile Money. Both of the system allows customer to pay for their goods or services through a mobile device without having cash on hand. Besides that, the other companies in Malaysia also come out with various services by applying the same concept such as Maxis, Celcom and so on.

Thus, have a great potential as the customers are more comfortable with this payment system. On the other hand, consumers can make transactions in their house as it is not necessary for them to go to the shopping centre. For example, the customers can book cinema ticket through their hand phone. Besides that, as a matter of convenience, the customers no need go to find ATM machines when they have insufficient cash on hand.
Hence, it will continue to continue to growth as consumer’s confidence on mobile payment increased.

For consumers’ adoption strategies, most of the companies offer bonus point, promotion, rewards and various incentives to build up the loyalty of the customers. For example, Hotlink will give extra credit to Hotlink users with certain calls or points.

A review from a post on E-tailing from My E-commerce blog

2009-07-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

A REVIEW on a POST on

E-TAILING from

MY E- COMMERCE BLOG

http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Tailing

From the link above,to the ecommerce’s blog, we can know that many offline businesses have started to move their step into electronic retailing (e-tailing). E-tailing simply mean retailing conducted over the internet, online. The e-tailing most likely is sale of goods and services to individuals (B2C). E-tailing has become a competitive advantage to the business as the internet became so important and popular nowadays. An example of e-tailing is the Amazon.com which is also the king of retailing. Amazon has continuously expanding and enhancing their product selection from books to electronic product to other nonretail activities. Some special features such as amazon allows customer to send and receive email to the book author has retain the loyalty of the customer.

From the blog, we can see that various business, even fisherman in Tanjung Dawai also go to e-tailing. We can’t deny that internet already play an important role in business. It also increases the standard of living of the fisherman while benefit them in term of profit.

In order to survive in e-tailing, it’s not just creating a website online and do then carrying out the business. It must also provide some special services or features in order to differentiate their website from other. From the example, we can see that online shopping is being top of the e-tailing market. However, many consumers are worrying about the size of clothes that they purchased does not fit them . To overcome this problem myShape.com allow consumer to purchase personalised clothing collection matched with their style and fit preferences and body dimensions.

E-tailing can enhance your business. Business in the offline market can consider starting their business online. Online market is globalisation and we can attract many customer. In additon, setting up a webpages is much more easier compare with open a physical outlet. However, from our opinion, physical market is equally important for us. For example, Dell which is well known as selling personal computer and laptop through online is already conducting their business in the offline market. As some consumer will be more confident and convincing in the product in the offline market. Offline market reduces the fraud and other security issues in the internet. Moreover, it also reduces the unemployment rate. Therefore, the better way is to make a combination in your business through physical market and online market.

Cause and Prevention of Credit Card DEBT

2009-07-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Consumer likes to purchases an item or service through credit card anytime anywhere. The convenience of using credit cards has stimulated the usage among people which has become a big social problem as it can lead many people into bankruptcy. Debts will increase when the consumer unable to pay the company for the money he or she spent. There have several reasons that cause the credit cards debt, such as following:

Poor Money Management
People are unconscious in conducting a monthly spending plan and do not keep track of monthly bills and that why individuals have accumulated many credit card debts. They usually spent on the unnecessary or no value items and when there is a need to purchases the required items people may short of cash and use credit card frequently. There might have some charge on purchasing using credit card, people tend to pay for the interest on these purchases every month. Thus, it end up with debt when they unable to make payment.

Lifestyle

Nowadays, people are likely to live in the lifestyles that they preferring even they may spend more than they earn. Therefore, they find that using credit cards is the one of the way to afford their lifestyle. For example, they may prefer to have luxury living style such as to having decoration, limousine, having meal in high-class restaurant, braded clothes and so on which are the causes of credit card debt to be a lot when they unable to pay the debts.

Consumption
Due to the convenience of using credit card, people tend not to bring a lot of cash goes for shopping. What they need just to bring along the light and handy credit card and purchase the merchandises and services that they want rather than to worry the insufficient cash to be consume. As a result, they would not realize how much they actually expended at the time, they will only know until the bill send from credit card bank which may causes a lot of debt need to pay.

Financial Ignorance
People less of the financial knowledge, so they spent money without taking into the consideration the key concept of saving and investing. They spend too much and save little. They are responsible to theirs life and money anyways so that they have to find out the correct ways to spend money. However, nowadays financial mistakes are increasingly expensive and complicated to resolve. The deficiency of financial knowledge raises the credit card debts because people tend to use credit cards in the incorrect ways without knowing the financial strength and limitation.

On the other hand, there have some of the PREVENTION METHODS to overcome credit card debts:

1. Set a clear BUDGET

People have to create clear budget and stick on it that includes monthly bills, food, clothes, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses will prevent from overspending and fall under deeper debt load. Otherwise, can get advices from a consumer credit counseling centre where they will help you work out different payment options for your credit cards.

2. Deal with CREDITORS

Address the problem to creditors to investigate whether they could give revised payment arrangement when having trouble to pay off debts because running away is not a good solution. If not, may refer to Fair Debt Collection Practices Act if the collection of money from creditors is not fair enough. Creditors may approve proposal and accept modified payment plan when hiring a good credit card debt consolidation companies.

3. Get rids of DEBIT CARD

By using debit cards, people will not spend more money than money they have and wont over the limit. There is no doubt that debit cards are a superb toll to get rid of credit card debt.

4. Get rids of CREDIT CARD

Get rids of credit card is one of the ways to live a debt free life. People can limit the number of card and using credit card that provide low interest balance transfers, transfer the balances from your other cards onto the card with the lowest rate. Besides that, only use the credit card when there is an emergency.

5. SELF CONTROL AND DISCIPLINE

The best practices of getting out of the credit card debt are able to pay back the full amount each month and only use in emergencies. Thus, self control and discipline to keep these cards in wallet and would not overspend. Besides that, avoid impulse purchases. Only purchase items that really needed. Do not buy it if it not a necessity. If you think you have badly in self control you can tear up credit card applications when the credit card company sends you those application forms.

Resisting the pressures of the credit card society will be a lot easier once you have set your mind to it, and started to feel the benefits. Enjoy the process, and you will be a cash convert for the rest of your wealthy life. ^^

Electronic currency

2009-07-03T22:30:00.001-07:00

Introduction

Electronic currency, or e-currency, is an approach of trading currencies electronically through brokerage account. E-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money or digital currency are some of the terms of e-currency. Examples of e-currency are Electronic Fund Transfer and direct deposit. Electronic Fund Transfer is type of computer-based system to conduct financial transaction through online. Direct deposit is an electronic transfer of a payment directly from the account of the payer to the payee. E-currency was officially accepted in 1999 by the countries of the European Union to simplify business by eliminating the exchange rates.

Advantage

E-currency allows people to make money on the Internet using their personal computer. E-currency allows people to start business or trading electronically with low cost. It only needs as low as few dollars to start e-currency trading or do business. It is suggested to the beginners that they should start with few dollars investment so that they can learn how the e-currency works. It depends to you whether you want to increase the investment. You will not spending too much on investment as the e-currency gave many chances to earn money.

Besides, banks offering many services whereby a customer can transfer funds, purchase stocks, contribute to their retirement plans and offer a variety of other services without having to handle physical cash or cheques. Customers do not have to wait in lines and this provides a lower-hassle environment. In addition, debit card and online bill payments allows immediate funds transfer of funds from an individual’s personal account to a business account without any actual paper transfer of money.

Disadvantage

Although there are some benefits of e-currency, there are also many significant disadvantages. These include fraud, failure of technology, possible tracking of individuals and loss of human interaction.

Fraud over digital cash has been a pressing issue in recent years. Hacking into bank accounts and illegal retrieval of banking records has led to a widespread invasion of privacy and has promoted identity theft.

There is also a pressing issue regarding the technology involved in digital cash. Power failures, loss of records and undependable software often cause a major setback in promoting the technology.

Privacy questions have also been raised; there is a fear that the use of debit cards and the like will lead to the creation of a global tracking system by the banking industry. Some people are working on anonymous e-cash to try to address this issue. The issue of providing anonymity to users itself introduces more problems, however; there is the distinct possibility that a fully anonymous digital cash system could permit the "perfect crime" - i.e., where a criminal uses someone else's electronic cash to make a payment, but cannot be traced - to occur. For this reason, 'revocable anonymity' is a suggested solution: a user is fully anonymous until they commit some crime, at which point authorization is given for their identity to be revealed. However, critics of this policy point out that the anonymous users will never be caught and held trial (thus their identity will never be revealed) without tracing.

Future evolution

The main focuses of digital cash development are 1) being able to use it through a wider range of hardware such as secured credit cards; and 2) linked bank accounts that would generally be used over an internet means, for exchange with a secure micropayment system such as in large corporations (PayPal).

Furthering network evolution in terms of the use of digital cash, a company named DigiCash is at the focus of creating an e-cash system that would allow issuers to sell electronic coins at some value. When they are purchased they come under someoneâ€™s own name and are stored on his computer or under his online identity. At all times, the e-cash is linked to the e-cash company and all transactions go through it, so the e-cash company secures anything that is purchased. Only the company knows your information and will properly direct purchases to your location.

Theoretical developments in the area of decentralized money are underway that may rival traditional, centralized money. Systems of accounting such as Altruistic Economics are emerging that are entirely electronic, and can be more efficient and more realistic because they do not assume a zero-sum transaction model.

Below are selected e-currency companies:

E-bullion - e-Bullion® is electronic bullion: international electronic currency fully backed by physical precious metals stored on behalf of account holders in Treasury Grade bullion storage facilities.
E-gold - The leading e-currency payment systems backed by physical gold.
Liberty Reserve - Liberty Reserve is an online payment system and provider of digital gold currency (LR-gold)
Moneybookers – Wallet for Internet which allows people to shop and send money worldwide.
Pecunix - Digital currency operator. Pecunix is backed by gold, and offers an advanced and secure API for merchants and users.

A review on a post on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

2009-06-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

After review the blog, it has alerted me to be more careful when performing the online activities. When we switch on our personal computer or laptop and connect to the internet and perform some online activities, there is always a risk that our computer will be hacked, vulnerable to viruses, worm or Trojan. In e-commerce world, actions should be taken to prevent computer from these threats as it involves business mainly in the online world. Neglect in internet security can lead to loss of personal data or hacker will hack to the company database to steal the information that is crucial to the company. First, we should be familiar with the threat and attack in order to protect our computer from threats.

There are two main types of attack and threats. One is known as technical attack and the other one is known as non technical attack. The example of the non-technical threat is ‘phising’ which the attacker will use the social pressure to trick the user to reveal their personal information such as credit card or bank account number. This technique is usually involved by sending e-mail to trick the user. For example, the attacker will send a bank notice that have been manipulated and states that they need the user’s information to safeguard their account due to certain reason. Then the user will provide their personal data with no doubt as it looks real.

Most of us are familiar with worms and viruses and these are the type of technical attacks. Besides that, non-technical attack also consists of Denial-of service (DOS) attack, Distributed denial of service (DDoS) and Trojan horse.

☠ Denial-of service (DOS) attack
This is attack uses software by sending a floor of data packets to the user computer with the purpose of overloading its capacity. This can cause the network to shut down and making it impossible for user to access.

☠ Distributed denial of service (DDoS)
It is similar to DOS attack which send request to bombard the system until it not responding. The different of DDos is the attacker will illegally access to several computer and send request while DOS only using one computer.

☠ Trojan horse
This is a program that appear to be useful function as it actually hidden a harmful function that can be harmful for your computer.

What can we do to aVoid those threat and attack?

❤ Access control
The very first thing is to protect the physical asset which is your personal computer, laptop, hand phone and so on. It is also important to determine that who can actually access to the webpage. Besides that, avoid using password that is something related to you and known by other people such as your name or the date of the birthday.
Biometric system such as finger print, iris scanner can also take into consideration as the interest of this system is increasing.

❤ Anti-virus and anti-spyware software
Anti-virus software can scan and protect the system by remove viruses, worm and also Trojan horse while anti- spyware can also removes Trojan horse which often include hidden inside of freeware product and services.

❤Firewall
Firewall act like a filter where the network must pass. It can protect the system against remote login, viruses, spam and others.

❤ Key encryption
This is the process of encrypts the message in the ways that are difficult, expensive and time consuming. This can prevent an unauthorized people to decrypt the message easily.

How to SAFEGUARD our personal and financial DATA

2009-06-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, computer and Internet become needs of people. We cannot ignore that, computer and Internet connections are became crucial part of our daily life, besides of hand phone. People use computer to record their daily life or business transaction; use Internet connection to conduct trading activities, gather information and etc. However, there is always a risk that our data will be exposed to others. In addition, we may not aware is it attacker will attack our computer to steal our personal or confidential data, or damage our computer. Therefore, it is important to safeguard our assets from those risks.

Below are some approaches that users can safeguard their personal and financial data:

1. Avoid from accessing financial data in public

Users are advised not to check their financial data in public such as coffee shop that offers free wireless access. These systems are trustable, yet it still unknown whether our data can be accessed by others who sharing the same wireless connections. Hence, users are recommended to check their Internet settings that can give them a highest security protection.

2. Use separate user account

If you are sharing computer with few people, you may be worry that your data will be accidentally access, modify, delete or misuse by others. Therefore, create separate users account is a most effective way to solve their problems. By using separate user account, each of the users will be assigned specific access right and privileges by administrator. This approach limits the risk of private and confidential date been accessible and modifiable by other unwanted users. However, it will not give a full protection by using separate user account against vulnerabilities that may give an attacker administrator privileges.

3. Use and maintain antivirus software and firewall

Antivirus software can helps you to detect and eliminate viruses and Trojan horses than can modify and access to your personal data stored in personal computer. You need to update your antivirus database regularly to avoid your computer being infected by newest viruses. Furthermore, firewall helps to provide protection in favor of users by safeguarding network from malicious or unnecessary Internet traffic. Most of the computer comes with the firewall that integrated with their operating system. Nevertheless, if you using old computer, you are advised to buy firewall and install by yourself.

4. Use password to encrypt sensitive/confidential data

Passwords and other security features add layers of protection if people know how to use it appropriately. By encrypting files, you can ensure that your data not being accessed by unauthorized person. Even if they can physically access to the data, yet the file is not readable or viewable by unauthorized person. Whether the data stored is permanently or temporarily, the data still need to be encrypted. Once you use encryption for your data, it is important that you need to remember the password or passphrases, if not, you lost access to your data and data lose as well.

5. Do not open unknown attachments/links

Never open any unknown files or links that send by an unknown party. Most probably those attachment contains viruses can lead to damages to your data. Besides, it could be one of a way that an unknown party steals your data by sending those attachments or links. Moreover, if you click on the links, most probably it will guide you to a website where they ask you to enter or fill in any personal or financial data.

Phishing

2009-06-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

is an e-mail fraud method by sending faked e-mail or instant messages in order to purloin the personal or financial information of recipients. Typically, the e-mail is come from the legitimate or well-known website. The e-mail will require recipients to verify their personal information or account detail such as password, credit card and bank account number or suggest victims to update the services, to badger the users visit their website through the hyperlink provided in the e-mail. The goal of the sender is for victim to disclose personal or account related information.

Following is the EXAMPLE of phishing:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

How to PREVENT Phishing?

1.Install up-to-date antivirus and antispyware software: antispyware software such as PowerShark can effectively detect and respond to the phishing attack.
2.Block the phishing e-mails by various spam filters: Phishing Filter can helps protect individual from Web fraud and the risks of personal data theft by warning or blocking phishing Web sites
3.Detect phishing in time: users can try to detect phishing by reading the information and characteristics of phishing
4.Enhance the security of the website: nowadays, many companies have taken some anti phishing methods in order to prevent and stop the process such as secret question, special images as well as biometric characteristic

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

2009-06-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

Technology of internet is continuing grow rapidly where everyone no matter old or young also gain access through internet. People tend to use internet for the business transaction, information sharing, surfing net and etc. However, there is a risk where some websites contains some malicious program such as virus, worms, trojan house and spyware. Therefore, the online security is very important to prevent the data from loss, damage and misuse.

THREAT of online security

Virus is a piece of code that inserts itself into a host, which including the operating system in order to spread over and harm the users computer. Virus attack can damage the operating system, causing the loss of data and other possible losses. In the internet world, there have around 80,000 viruses and everyday will have 25 new viruses be created. The examples of computer viruses are I Love You virus, AutoRun and etc

Worm is a program that copies itself repeatedly. The repeatedly copied files use up the available space and slow down a computer operating speed. The difference between the virus and worm is worm does not need to attach itself to an existing program. For example Wscript.KakWorm spreads using Microsoft Outlook Express. It attaches itself to all outgoing messages using the Signature feature of Outlook Express and Internet Explorer newsgroup reader. Simply reading the received email message causes the virus to be placed on the system.

Trojan House is a program that hides within or looks like a legitimate program. Although they seem to be harmless, they may however be triggered if certain condition is certified. The example of Trojan horse is Trojan Xombe which is the mask as email from Microsoft. The hackers will access to the computer and steal the passwords. Spyware is a stand-alone program that monitors the activity on computer, gathering personal information, such as usernames, passwords, account numbers, files, other confidential information, and even driver’s license or social security numbers without being detected, and sends this information to another computer. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive spyware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program. For example, blogs are being used by hackers to spread spyware, exploiting flaws in publishing tools. Experts say hackers can use JavaScript and ActiveX, common methods for launching programs on webpages, to install spyware on blog visitors’ PCs. Richard Stiennon, chief of technology for Webroot Software, says auto-generated websites such as blogs are a great place for spyware authors to spread their work.

In conclusion, risk exposed by computer users is increasing with the increasing developed technology. Therefore, safeguards developed must be always up to date to enhance the defenses against online security threats. In the same time, users must be educated and informed about the crucial damages and loss caused by imposing online security threats.

Revenue Model for Google,eBay and Amazon.com

2009-06-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

REVENUE MODEL

Google, eBay and Amazon.com

The main source of GOOGLE’s REVENUE is focused on advertisement. According to the data from Google's latest 10-Q filing, the profit of Google’s advertisement is 98% of its total revenue. Google advertisement include Google Adwords, Goole Adsense and Froogle. On the other hands, eBay is an online auction and shopping website that generates revenue from insertion fees, promotional fees, final value fees and sales revenue model through its subsidiary. Amazon.com is success in online-shopping as it generates revenue mainly by selling books, electronic, videos and so on.

Google Adwords, which generate most revenue to Google, is pay per click advertising program that are design to allow the advertiser to present advertisement to people that are looking for information of what the advertiser has offer. Currently, Google is testing a new advertising program that pays site owner when a visitors clicks on an advertisement and perform a specific auction. This is known as Cost-Per-Click model.

Read information from Google Advertising Program and Google’s revenue model

For , it mainly focus on online auction which generates huge profit. The convenience of online auction has increased the number of bidders as the seller and bidders can participate in the auction at anywhere and anytime. Besides that, due to the potential of lower price, the broad scope of products and service available as well as the simple way to access and operate the auction process, it is not difficult to find out that there are large number of bidders and sellers.

Read article – Reasons to still love eBay

Moreover,allow sellers to offer their goods. Buyers are permitted to review the products, comment and rate it on the rating scale from one to five stars. Besides that, Amazon is pioneer affiliate partnership marketing. It allow website owner to create the online store in their website and display Amazon books. Then Amazon pays the referral fees from the sales to website owner.

Failure of Kozmo

2009-06-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

E-commerce has brought a lot of benefits. This can be seen that many companies have started their business from physical system to online system. In fact, not every company is successfully moving their business plan to online system. Therefore, Companies need to plan and consider the factors that will affect their plan to moving their business to e-commerce system.

Here is the example of the FAILURE of e-commerce:

kozmo.com was a online company which organized in 1997 by Joseph Park and Yong Kang in New York City . kozmo.com is convenient as it provided many items and products from snack food to DVD. One of its competitive advantage and also where Kozmo.com well known of its delivery system. Kozmo.com will deliver small item by free of charge.Moreover, Kozmo.com promises that they will deliver the product which the consumer orders within an hour. It has attracted many college students which came from middle class base.

Kozmo.com realized that target on the college students does not bring much profit after 4 years. Therefore, it decided to change their targeted group who make up of 76% of his business to people who would likely to order expensive products. Kozmo started to duplicate their categories to 5 main products which are meals, entertainment, drug shop, gift shop and grocery in order to attract customers who are less Internet-savvy. Other than that, Kozmo.com joint with other restaurants to delivered their food as to launch their new plan of ‘ready to eat gourmet meals’.

In April 2001, Kozmo.com FAILED after the collapse of the dot-com bubble. It shutting down the business and laid off its 1100 employees. According to the document of Securities and Exchange Commission, Kozmo.com had made a profit of $3.5 in 1999 but with a net loss of $26.3 million at the end.

The REASONS that Kozmo failed:

BEFORE change their plan:

Costly
Kozmo deliver a small item on free basis. Although it can attract consumer, it is costly as the transportation fee may not be covered. Kozmo has realized this and finally initiated a $10 minimum charge but it also cannot stop it from shutting down its company

Home Delivery System
Although Kozmo delivery system is attractive, but it has been proven that home delivery system is hard to make profit. Example: Webvanalaaa.

AFTER change their plan:

Change Plan
This is the 1 main reason of failure of the Kozmo.com which it changing their target from college student who make up of 76% of his business to upscale consumer.

Restaurant-delivery Service
Kozmo will have to compete over many restaurants that provided delivery service which offered more choice (food) in New York City.

Besides using a success example, a failure example also indicate a good lesson for us to learn. From this Kozmo.dom, we can learn that planning is an important starting point to conduct the business in e-commerce. We must look and think at the several aspect or results instead on just rely on one competitive advantage. Delivery system can be a competitive advantage but it also can make your business going to a downturn in this case.

Success of eBay and its Causes

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eBay is one of the success example for e-commerce and also a well-known website for everyone. It has around 13 years of history. eBay has a strong primary goal and mission is to be an online person-to-person community.

eBay's success is based on its ability to transform many fragmented, primarily local markets into global ones at a relatively low cost to its users. Nowadays, all buying and selling transaction can be make online so that it can satisfied people who always have a high demand and make sure that they are getting the items that they need. If compare to last time, it have been done through garage sales, classified advertising in local newspapers, and flea markets. However, the number of people available to complete a transaction was limited because a face-to-face meeting was typically required.

FRAUD have been mitigated through a user feedback system escrow services, so that users right are PROTECTED. These also can increase the trust of users on eBay. eBay's ability to bring a large number of buyers and sellers together is what has driven its GROWTH. The more buyers there are, the more sellers want to participate. Conversely, the more sellers there are, the more items are to buy, and the greater the attraction of the service to buyers.

eBay makes money by charging listing fees and collecting a percentage of the selling price of items sold through the site. EBay also owns PayPal, which makes money through investing its clients' assets and from transaction fees.

PayPal

eBay successfully introduced NEW MARKET, such as car sales, which many thought would not be adaptable to its business model. Although just a small portions of the world's population currently using eBay but fundamentally, it is so successful because it meets its customer's needs better than any competing service. No one else has accumulated such a large number of buyers and sellers in a single marketplace.

The History and Evolution of E-Commerce

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Electronic Commerce (generally known as e-commerce) is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information through computer networks, including the Internet (Turban, 2008). E-commerce as a methods of organization, merchants, and consumer to cut cost and help to improve quality of goods and services. The amount of transaction has grown dramatically since the wide spread of Internet. E-commerce generally considered as sales aspects of e-business.

History and Evolution of E-commerce

Initially e-commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Fund Transfe (EFT). Both of these technologies gave an opportunity for users to exchange information, conduct electronic transaction. In late 1970s, these technologies become more capable and businesses and organizations are able to send commercial documentation electronically, such as purchase order. In addition, credit cards, automated teller machine (ATM), and telephone banking are accepted as form of e-commerce in 1980s. Starting 1990s, Enterprise Resourse Planning (ERP), data mining, and warehousing are included as part of e-commerce.

In 1994, the use of Internet became popular in public, yet it still took about four years to develop the security protocols (such as HTTP) and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). DSL allows rapid access and continual connection to the Internet. In the year of 2000, many companies and organizations in United States and Western have proposed their services through World Wide Web. The meaning of e-commerce changed and people began to define it as the process of purchasing goods and services through Internet using secure connections and electronic payment.

Timeline

Year	Event
1990	The first web browser-World Wide Web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee using a NeXT computer.
1992	26 accessible sites available in World Wide Web.
1993	First browser to support the display of images was released.
1994	World’s first search engine was launched. World’s first secure ecommerce transaction was reported to have occurred.
1995	First online affiliate program being launched. Dell and Cisco began use Internet for commercial transaction. Well-known E-commerce leaders, eBay.com and Am azon.com were introduced.
1998	PayPal was founded. My Simon, as the first comparison shopping site was launched. Goto.com introduced Pay Per Click Advertising.
2000	E-commerce collapsed and many e-commerce companies disappeared
2001	E-commerce re-grows and larger form of e-commerce, business-to-business has achieved about $700 billion in transactions.
2002	E-bay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion
2003	Amazon.com post yearly profit
2007	R.H. Donnelly acquires Business.com for $345 million
2008	US ecommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2000

There are number of payment methods introduced by e-commerce website, such as PayPal and credit cards. Thus, it ease Internet users to consume goods and services electronically, for examples, users can order groceries for home delivery, and order food as well through online. Users no longer use Internet for the purpose of looking for information; the usage of Internet has extended to allow users to shopping online without go shopping complex.

Related Sources:

Electronic commerce aka e-commerce history
Electronic commerce
History of Ecommerce
History and timeline of the World Wide Web's evolution

About Choi Nyen

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Name: Ng Choi Nyen
DOB: 23 November 1988
Hometown: Selayang
Email Address: nyen1123@hotmail.com
Status: In a relationship, yet still AVAILABLE
Hobby: Writing blog, play game, reading, surf net
Likes: Friend, Family, and Future Family
Dislikes: Milk, Medicine

I’m a girl that very likes to sleep. I can sleep anywhere anytime. Even I have enough sleep last night, but I still feel sleepy. This make me always sleep in the class. The only way to cure this habit is drink coffee every morning. It bring worst impact to my result if I no do so.

http://www.facebook.com/
This website enables people to keep in touch with each others. Besides, facebook provides a lot of features such as give comment to their friends, games, upload pictures and videos and etc. I’m always log in to facebook for the purpose ofàplay games!!! Haha~~~
http://www.utar.edu.my/
Latest news and information are available to public. Besides, students can use intranet provided by utar to check their results and timetable online.
http://www.google.com.my/
Help to search information which we need. In addition, google provides language tools to help us to search information in other languages.
http://www.hotmail.com/
Help to share and receive mails from our friends. Any information can be shared through mails. Besides, we also can forward interesting mails to our contact list.
http://www.blogger.com/
Allows me to read friend’s blog through blogger and know their feeling and news. Besides, blogger enables readers to write their comments to their friend for every blog read.

About Stephy

2009-06-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Name : Ng Fui Foong (Stephy Pink)
Date of birth : 23 Oct 1988
Status : Single but not AVAILABLE

Zodiac : libra or scorpion (either one)
Hometown : Cheras
Likes : chocolate, bear bear, doggie, my friends
Dislike : loneliness
E-mail : pink_poison121@hotmail.com
Hobbies : shopping, blogging, reading…

Here is the brief introduction of myself:
An ordinary girl that is always expect for an extraordinary life. Haha ~ hello~ My friend used to call me Stephy pink or pink poison and I am happy if u calls me that as it sounds friendly. I like pink and black. Pink represents cute and black reflects cool so I am the combination of these two. =P

When turn on my laptop, the first thing that I usually do is open my window life messenger which allow me to chat or discuss assignment with my friends and group mate. During leisure time, I will write blog which show my life and my feeling and the top 5 website that I have visited the most are as following:

1. http://www.hotmail.com/ : which allowed me to send and receive mail from my friends.
2. http://www.facebook.com/ : this website is quite popular now. Its allow us to share our picture, send comment and a lot of application is available.
3. http://www.blogspot.com/ : this is the place where I share my though and feeling to my friend. U can know me more from my blog. =>
4. wble.utar.edu.my : this website allow me to download tutorial and lecture note that are uploaded by our lecturer in Utar.
5. http://www.google.com/ : Much information is available in this website. This search engine allows me to find information that is needed for my assignment.

E-commerce is crucial and becomes a competitive advantage to every organization in this the changing environment. Through this blog, I hope I can learn more about e-commerce and share the information to the people who are visit to our blog. =)

About PinG

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Hey… I am Goh Yen Ping…21 year old.. Born on 28th September 1988. I am studying at UTAR,took up Accounting Degree even it is not my choice of preferences. I like reading, watching movie and SleEping…. I come from Kuching, which is the capital of the East Malaysian state of SaRawak. My friend thought that I am living in the tree or long house..! Please don't have such thinking. Let me briefly tell you all about my hometown, Kuching. Kuching have many histories about the origins of the city’s name came from. One of the theories was the “mata kuching” or “cat’s eye” fruit was grown in abundance by the river banks where it was a commercial heart of city. If you are interested to know more about it you may refer to this website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuching Kuchin g) then u will discover it’s natural of beauty.

That's ME

The Kuching City Centre skyline at dusk, viewed from across the Sarawak River

The following is my internet website i suft during my spare time :

a) Hotmail & Yahoo: check my mail in order to keep in touch with my friends
b) http://www.him.com.tw/: this is my idol’s website and where I can get their information…sometimes I have express idea in this forum to discuss things with other person
c) Google search engine (http://www.google.com/) and Yahoo search engine (http://www.yahoo.com/): to find relevant information for my assignments, thesis purpose or look for any entertainment news
d) http://mp3.baidu.com/: to seek for and downloading any latest songs or old songs
e) http://www.fmx.cn/: this is a website for reading novel especially love novel and it is FREE!!!
f) http://www.youtube.com/: watch funny video or drama to relax
g) http://www.airasia.com/ & http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/home.aspx : In both of this website, I can compare the price of air ticket or obtain the latest information and promotion about the flight in order to get the cheaper fare price and save my parents money since I am come from KuChinG…(don’t rely on air asia only because it is not always the cheaper airline)

In my mindset, top 5 internet activities include chatting with friends through window live messenger to keep in touch with them, checking mail, download the latest songs or movie, online watching shows and obtain the information of my idol (S.H.E) through their website. Actually, I have spend much of my time in the internet due to the deficiency of transportation…hAha

Wish all of you have a nice day!!!

About SuLing

2009-06-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hello…I'm the author of the blog, known as SuLing. Here's a brief introduction about me.

Name (I/C): Saw So Ling
Preferred Name: SuLing

Age: 21 (2009)
D.O.B: 1st September 1988
Zodiac: Dragon
Horoscope: Virgo
Heritage: Chinese (Hokkien)

Current Location: Sungai Long, Selangor.
Relationship Status: Single but not AVAILABLE
Currently Pursuing: Bachelor Degree of Commerce Accounting (3rd Year)
Language (In Order): English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Bahasa Malaysia and Hokkien

Likes
• Black
• Number 3 , 5 or 9
• Money

Dislikes
• Worms
• Insects
• Dirt
• Dust

Interests
• Reading for gaining more knowledge
• Listening Music to reduce the stress
• Jogging make me more healthy
• Traveling make life meaningful

Internet Activities
• Check Mail
• Chatting thru MSN
• Blogging
• Download New Song
• Play Games

The most top five websites I like visits the most and why:

• www.thestar.com.my – to know about current news, nation and worldwide.
• www.friendster.com – to keep in touch with friends in different location.
• www.google.com – search engine that use to search useful information to finish up assignment
• www.hotmail.com – to check the mail forwarded
• http://wble.utar.edu.my – e-learning website that provide student with the lecture notes, tutorial questions and recently updates.