Oh my! If I owned a cyber cafe I might faint on the spot upon knowning the "New Rules" which will be enforced by government soon.....






Let me state the "New Rules" once again
  1. Have to close by midnight daily.
  2. Banned from using tinted glasses in their premises. (must be able to see through from the outside)
  3. Only allowed to operate from the ground floor.
  4. Those under 12 years old must be accompanied by parents or guardian and only allowed to stay up to 10.00pm.
  5. Prohibited from providing gaming activities, gambling, pornography, music and publications with negative element.
  6. Cigarettes and alcohol to be prohibited from being sold.
  7. A book log to record the entry and departure time of the patron

So what is in your mind now?
Cool rules?!
Great!
or......??


Well some of the rules are actually good such as those under 12 years old must accompanied by guardian. If the cyber cafe were to comply to such rules, it would surely benefits the society and make cyber cafe a better place to hang out.

This definately is a good start to nurture our future generation to be healthy in both physically and mentally. The reputation of cyber cafe will be changed. It no longer will be the place where teachers, parents and society have negetive impression on. It would be a place to share information, makes friends, learning new technology and so on.


But in the real case, many cyber cafe has failed to comply with the current law which are been considered loose. For example, although our government has restricted students who wearing school uniform to enter into cyber cafe but there are still alot of cyber cafe which "open the door" for the people who wearing school uniform. So I was wondering that will the cyber cafe comply with the new rules that are going to be enforced in future? If so, how are they going to make business out of it?


Perhaps the only way is creativity and innovation. The cyber cafe could provide more services such as reading corner and cafeteria to cater the needs to the customers.


_________________________________________________________________________________________
Sources:
Information
  • http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-rules-for-cyber-cafes-soon.html

Pictures & images
  • http://www.candidity.org/images/cyber_cafe.jpg
  • http://www.steinski.com/images/display/504blog_question_mark3.jpg
  • www.greenovate-europe.eu/files/u25/Innovation.jpg


Potential and consumer adoption strategies

Mobile payment system had become most popular payment method among Malaysian. From the wikipedia, Mobile payment is new and rapidly-adopting alternative payment method – especially in Asia and Europe. Instead of paying with cash, check or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for wide range of services and digital or hard goods such as music, book, video and etc.


According to our finding, TeleMoney is the country's first mobile payment service via multi-channel access for Internet and wireless transactions and its was fully operational in the first quarter of 2002. It is a service free of banks and Telco dependence; a customer with a credit card or debit card with a cellular phone can register for this service. So, Malaysians can now enjoy a secure and convenient way to conduct mobile commerce using a GSM cellular phone.

As for the potential, mobile payment aims to foster close collaboration between banks and mobile operators to build a secure and interoperable ecosystem for mobile financial services to grow in Malaysia.

According to ABI study, it’s had examines that potential for mobile payment in four vertical markets that will drive adoption in :

-taxis
-parking
-movies
- Internet shopping.




As for the consumer adoption strategies, DiGi had offers Customers Openwave's Solutions to Incite Fun with Mobile Phones in year 2009. This secure provisioning provides better customer service while reducing operating and customer care costs.


In addition, the seamless initiation promotes service trials and encourages rapid consumer adoption. Beside that, Hotlink also offer the consumer by giving gift at certain level of purchasing or giving redemption of reward and give extra credit to customers which are Hotlink user.

As a conclusion, Mobile payment system has to be continues to development so that there are more advance and easy for us to use.



Corporate Blogging as a new marketing communition tools


A corporate blogging is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Hence, it’s allow people to posts and comments which is easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. Nowadays, a lot of major browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 support RSS technology, which enables readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog and it is very useful for low-volume blogs.

There are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal. An internal blog is generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. The informal nature of blogs may encourage employee participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of an organization and a sense of community.

While, 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. It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases, though a corporate blog often tries to accomplish similar goals as press releases do.

In marketing terms, a corporate blogging can bring a human personality to a faceless company, which can create a connection between the corporation and the client. This can lead to deeper loyalty and richer feedback. Moreover, a corporate blog makes it easy for customers to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services.

Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. A corporate blog allows a company to closely track the response of their customer on new product and service In addition, corporate blog conjures images of people who are passionate about their products or services and are eager to engage customers.

According to Lewis Green, “…as a way to brand myself and my business. But to be successful, my branding efforts must lead to work. Newspaper and magazine articles, as well as TV and radio guest appearances and my books have always done that. I saw no reason why blogging shouldn't be able to build my brand image, market my business philosophy and values, offer lot of free content for my readers, and lead to work. It has” he says.

Reference:
http://www.internetviz-newsletters.com/bulldog/e_article000404957.cfm

http://www.selfseo.com/story-19130.php

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/guestopinions/blog/corporate-blogging-benefits-of-interactive-marketing/?cs=22957

www.streetdirectory.com/.../blogging/corporate_blogging_dos_and_donts.html

http://www.ximnet.com.my/thelab/comments_articles/comments.asp?id=15


E-government defines as “the use of all information and communication technologies, from fax machines to wireless palm pilots, to facilitate the daily administration of government…” The advantages of e-government are to help government saves millions of dollars annually by decreasing spending on printing, sorting, and mailing tax materials through offering taxpayers web access to tax return forms and publications. Hence, they also reduce travel and waiting time (from in-line to on-line), introduce a more efficient payment methods, improve transparency of government’s operation, improve poor governance and reduce systemic corruption, and eventually lead to transformation of governance.

In 1997, E-government initiative was launched to lead the country into the Information Age in Malaysia and initiated as a key factor in the national strategies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the government operations, and improve the relationships between citizens and the state. The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens .


As for citizen’s adoption strategies, Government adopted an e-Government Policy and Implementation Strategy to ensure access to information, active citizen participation, transparent administration and simplified access to government services by making e-government services available to citizens on a 24 hour basis to creating a conducive legal environment for transformation of most of government transactions electronically.

In addition, Government should concern about ease of use, compatibility, and trustworthiness as significant factors that affecting the citizens’ intention to use the e-services. Hence, the government should also concern with the accuracy, relevancy and completeness information that provided to the citizens as the successful to implement the E-Government in Malaysia.

Beside that, government should enhance the legislation on personal data protection, privacy, and security of the citizen’s private information to be protected. At the same time, it can help to provide e-citizen education; skills and training to every citizen are ready and able to adopt online government services.


Reference:

http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm
www.it-innovations.ae/iit005/proceedings/.../G_6_IIT05-Al-Adawi.pdf
http://www.egovnews.org/
www.doi.gov/e-government/DOI%20E-Government%20Strategy.pdf
http://www.itu.int/wsis/stocktaking/scripts/documents.asp?project=1124118918&lang=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-government
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073046901815






Review on local,transactional e-commerce site : SHIPTOMYPLACE.COM


Shiptomyplace.com is a lot like a neighborhood toner store in Malaysia which provides a great selection of high-quality laser toner, friendly service, and of course, everyday low prices. The goal is to bring customers the best toner shopping experience for toner on the Internet.

Products:

They offer wide range of compatible/remanufactured toners for brands:


Selling System:
Fixed price (good quality at lowest price)

Payment Channel:

Online credit card :











E- banking payment :




Services provided:

-Electronic catalog with detail information of the product.

-Electronic cart enables customers to purchase more than 1 product at a time

-Product map which provides a list of all products available and the code.

-Customer can subscribe to the mailing list for latest updates, news and promotion.

- Provides printing services for business card.

Conclusion:
This website makes users convenient in a sense of purchasing printing supply without stepping out of their house yet receiving what they want by the next day. The product and services provided is guarantee for good quality at the lowest price.


Credit is the promising to spend future earnings in order to obtain a good or service today. A credit card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder’s promise to pay for these goods and services.

Credit card can be your best friend if uses wisely but it can also be your worst enemy without proper money management which leads to credit card debt. The debt will accumulates and increases via interest and penalties and the consumer will struggle to clear the balance for the rest of the year.

















Causes & Prevention:

1) Excessive spending
Spending too much on things you may not really need is likely the most common cause of amassing credit card debt. We’re living in a consumer culture, with glittery advertisements beckoning us to buy, buy, and buy around every corner. Sometimes, it can seem impossible to resist taking out that credit card and swiping it through to get what you want. But spending beyond your means will cause you to quickly become buried in debt.
So…….

To curb overspending, make a budget of your necessary expenses each month. And, most importantly, stick to it! Identify expenses that you don’t really need each month and eliminate them. Before you make an impulse buy, ask yourself, “Do I really need this? Or am I just spending money to spend money?”


2) Poor money management
Money management consists of everything from monthly budgeting to bill paying to savings and investment contributions. Dropping the ball in one area will likely cause control of your finances to slip out of your hands. For instance, if you miss paying your monthly credit card bills, you will be charged high late fees at substantially higher interest rates.
So……….

Set up an automatic bill pay transfer to take care of your monthly payments. Also, keeping a calendar (electronic or hard copy) for when your payments are due is another effective way to keep on top of your due dates.


3) Not saving or saving too little
Contributing regularly to savings account(s) is an important part of money management. If you’re contributing very little or no funds to savings, you will likely reach for your credit cards to cover any unexpected or emergency expenses
So…..

Set up an automatic monthly transfer from your checking account to a savings account


4) Choosing the wrong card
So….
Shop around and get a credit card personalized for your particular situation.


5) Not knowing the interest rate
So….
Find out the interest rate you were offered and also the interest rate the issuer actually gives you upon approval. In addition, check the rate on your monthly statements because credit card issuers can raise your rates for little or no apparent reason and with little warning.




Resources :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
http://www.jermaineharris.com/2009/06/finance-103-credit-card-management/ http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/creditcardmistakes.
html http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html



Review on "Using Touch n Go to buy fast food in Malaysia will be reality" which is one of the post of e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog.



Have you think about if one day, your wallet is run out of cash and you've drop or forgotten to bring all your credit cards and ATM card but inside there is only have one piece of Touch 'n Go card which contains about few hundred bucks inside? But again, you only aware that after you're ordered your food in a particular fast food restaurant?

Some may answer "Well, I can just cancel my order" or "Walk out from the fast food restaurant directly". Such action may create a very embarrassed situation. But from now on, I believe this will not be an issues for everyone who is the holder of Touch n Go card, we will look into it more further later.


Touch 'n Go which is a charge card that make prepayment in order to top up the value of the card. Such card which is currently being widely used in Malaysia for the toll fees collection, public tranports and parking paying device.



From April 2008 onwards, Touch n Go are available for use to purchase burger, drink, doughnut, and even movie tickets from 21 outlets which located in the Klang Valley under the pilot scheme.

Those 21 outlets which under the pilot scheme are such:

7-eleven, A&W, Caltex, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Cathay Cineleisure, and there will be more in the coming future.

By providing such service, Malaysian will slowly adopt into this cashless transaction culture. In Hong Kong, a prepaid charge card which same as Touch n Go in Malaysia called Octupus card.




For what i knew, such culture were adopt by Hong Kong citizen successfully. The Octupus card that their holding are accpeted wi
dely within the country, no matter in retail outlet, restaurant, public transports and so on.

According to Hasni Zarina Mohamed, who is the chief operating officer of Touch n Go, stated that such adpotion is to assist and support Bank Negara's to move for a cashless society. She hope that by next year the rate of the cardholder used it for retail is about 5% to 10%.

By the way, it is a good start for providing such services in Malaysia, because we malaysian can have another alternative ways to make transcation payment beside using bank notes, coins, and credit card.

Picture below shown the purchasing of doughnuts at Dunkin Donut by using the Touch 'n Go....

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Source:
Information
  • http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/12/nation/20902911&sec=nation
  • http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/2008/04/using-touch-n-go-card-to-buy-fast-food.htm
Pictures and images
  • https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60dIFjPEl_jTEXuQ2SrGtQAp-Ox6peQpwweJDE-c1qq-G6SFP_ZlZNiHVPqw0jA9riWCvTkHP-28UH-nUNZtdHhzXxrJwrVykCLWdNd5_WNCcJwdXLauN2Wdrlujp2dShx9aI4XKTi6_H/s400/Cashless.JPG
  • http://www.touchngo.com.my/

Welcome

About this blog


Knowledge has no boundaries. Therefore learning is a constant and endless process.

Join us as we sail through the sea of E-commerce in this 14 weeks.

Welcome Abroad!
Kindly leave your valuable comments/feedback =)


Regards,

Ong Wen Yi (winnie)
Woo Kok Keong (victor)
Yoon Chee Weng (Weng)


The Time

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