Corporate Blogging

Do you know what corporate blogging is?

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. There are many types of corporate blogging, which are Internal Blogs, External Blogs and CEO Blogs. An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues.

Example of the corporate blog implementation and its effect

Visit Tampa Bay is an example of corporate blog. It has been blogging for seo (search engine optimization) for a few months and each month they have had the opportunity to gain new clients through this program. They are doing this by winning organic searches on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. In fact, every one of their keywords is ranking in at least one of these search engines.

To view their blog, click the link below.
http://blog.visittampabay.com/blog/visittampabay

Advantages of corporate blogging

• Leaders can communicate directly with their customers, suppliers and investors and employees.
  
• Blogs can help organization develop stronger relationships and brand loyalty with its customers, as they interact with the 'human face' of the organization through blogs.


• Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generates trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.
  
• If your blog has a positive effect on your company’s reputation then it is very beneficial to your career.

Disadvantages of corporate blogging

• Blogs make many organizations look like disorganizations, with multiple tones and opinions. Contrary to what some might think, the average customer prefers it if the organization they are about to purchase from is at least somewhat cohere
  
• blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time.


• It can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office.

How to prevent E-auction fraud?

E-auction, also called procurement auction, reverse auction , sourcing event, e-sourcing or eRA, is a tool used in industrial business-to-business procurement. It is a type of aution in which the role of the buyer and seller are reversed, with the primary objective to drive purchase prices downward. In an ordinary auction or known as a forward auction, buyers compete to obtain a good or service. In a reverse auction, sellers compete to obtain business. It is a tool used by many purchasing and supply management organizations for spend management, as part of strategic sourcing and overall supply management activities.
Buyers, sellers, and market makers should adhere to auction rules and industry codes of conduct for the use of reverse auctions, if they exist. Problems arise when one or more parties fail to conform to auction rules. This can range from simple cries of "foul" to litigation.

As a smart consumer, you should know how to protect yourself when you are doing E-auction? So, what is our concerns when involving in E-auction? The well known and the largest Internet auctioneer is eBay which has introduced several measures in an effort to reduce fraud. The following are prevention to e-auction fraud:

• User identity verification such in IC number, driver’s license number or date of birth. For example, verified eBay user, the voluntary program, encourages users to supply eBay with information for online verification. While users are also adviced to save all transactions information as a backup document to yourself and it will be useful when fraud are occurred.


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


• Grading services which is a way to determine the physical condition of an item, such as ‘poor quality’ or ‘mint condition’. Different item have different grading systems. For example, some are graded from A1 to F1, or by ranking from 1 to 5, while coins are graded from poor to perfect uncirculated.


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


• Escrow services. Both buyers and sellers in a deal are protected with an independent third party. Buyer mails the payment to escrow services which verifies the payment and alerts the seller when everything checks out. An example of a provider of online escrow services s i-Escrow. Users also should not giving out their personal privacy information until you have thoroughly checked out the seller and the escrow service.


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


• Physical inspection. It can eliminate many problems especially for collectors’ item. But in fact, this is not practicable due to some limitations.


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


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

Further reading about prevention of e-auction fraud:

1. Prevention methods for e-auction
2. What's Internet Auction Fraud, And How Do I Prevent It?

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

What is E-government and how far is its implementation?

E-Government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. E-government is one of the seven MSC flagship launched in Malaysia. Current application of e-government implemented in Malaysia included e-Filing, renewing road tax and driving license online, KWSP’s i-Akaun, E-Perolehan, employment opportunities and more. The vision of government to launch e-government services is to 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. It also provides citizens and organizations with more convenient access.

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application that has been implementing so far are:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

2. Human Resource Management

Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

The myGovernment Portal had been established and acts as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for the citizens. This website serves different categories of users ranging from citizens, business, governments, and non-citizens. Besides, it also provides the pathway for its users to make enquiry, get the information of government job vacancies, complaints about their dissatisfaction and so on.

Common problems encountered by consumers:

• Many citizens in Malaysia are reluctant to transact or utilize the applications of e-Government through internet due to the risk of inaccurate data transferred, potential fraudulent, phishing, and stolen of privacy data and so on.
• Many consumers do not know how to use the services provided as there is no manual guide which could assist them in the way transacting over internet.
• Public are not aware of the e-Government services provided as there is lack of extensive advertisements and promotions regarding the services. Most of them still using the traditional method especially those computer illiterate.
• Do not have the accessibility over internet due to the digital divide especially those in rural area or poor families that do not posses internet access at home

Strategies to encourage more residences to use e-Government applications

• Increase the awareness the of e-Government application by publishing and advertising publicly. (e.g. provide user manual guide, advertise on promotion board/television, setting up help desks and so on.
• Increase citizens and businesses units’ willingness to adopt and utilize these services by educate and introduce the functions of e-Government on how to use the services provided. (e.g. renew driving license)
• Enhance security and confidence of the existing and potential citizens by constantly maintaining the server and keep upgrading the safety issues arisen through advance technology and law governance.
• Set up kiosks at public area such as shopping complex, government agencies which will increase the users’ accessibility.

A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog -- New rules for cyber cafes soon

After reading the post of “New rules for cyber cafes soon”, I think it might be a good idea to enforce such rules to have a control on the operating hours and businesses of cyber cafes. Besides, the activities of those who appear in cyber cafes could be controlled under the new rules, especially for teenagers as they always go cyber cafes for gaming. Once they start gaming, they can hardly get out of the gaming world. As such, they consume most of their time in cyber cafes instead of putting efforts on their studies or doing other healthy activities. The new rules can also prevent those who going cyber cafes from surfing porn sites, gambling and so on.

However, the enforcement of such rules might significantly affect the businesses of cyber cafes. Since the activities of customers are being controlled and they could not do whatever they want in the cyber cafes, customers will feel that it is meaningless for them and might stop going to cyber cafes especially for those who always go for gaming. This may lead to the closing down of most of the cyber cafes in our country.

In my opinion, the enforcement of the new rules for cyber cafes still considered a good one so that our nations can go for a healthier lifestyles rather than spending their time doing unhealthy activities in the cyber cafes. But the point is the businesses of cyber cafes will surely be affected.