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

e-Government (short for electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational 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.

Our country,Malaysia is implementing electronic. The status of e-government implementation in Malaysia is widely discussed as to the potential of e-government implementation towards the public and businesses. The implementation of e-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by the Malaysian government.The e-government initiative launched the country into the Information Age. It will improve the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility, and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Simultaneously, it will improve information flow and processes within the government, improve the speed and quality of policy development, and improve coordination and enforcement. This enabled the government to be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Services provided by E-goverment Malaysia

E-filling

E-filling is a method of filing of all income documents of tax payer in Malaysia, that uses an electronic format rather than a traditional paper format, from office or home through Internet. To use this services, taxpayers need to make a tax registration. Malaysia's Inland Revenue Board (IRB) will send the PIN for online tax registration through mail to the taxpayers.

Renewing road tax & driving license

Tired of waiting in queues to renew road tax for your vehicle ? This is made possible with the launching of online road tax renewal services developed by MY E.G. Services Berhad (MyEG, the leading E-Government services concessionaire in Malaysia.
The new service does away with the need for the car registration card and the public can access the service through MyEG's interactive portal at www.myeg.com.my and the Road Transport Department's website at www.jpj.gov.my.
Users can opt to have the road tax disc delivered directly to their homes or office.

KWSP i-Akaun

KWSP i-Akaun is a online account for the Employees Povident Fund (KWSP/EPF).

E-perolehan

E-Perolehan is an govermant online procurement system that allows local entrepreneurs to register as suppliers for government offices. It also allows the government offices and agencies to procure products and services through a fast, web-based and electronic application.

Citizen’s adoption strategies

• Higher quality of service will lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and thus can increase the use of e-government services.
• Website personalization & customazation.
• Providing a single shared platform for the delivery of government-originating information and news.
• Simplifying the navigation of and search for information and online services through the provision of a single entry point.
• Providing added convenience to the public in the usage of government services.
• Provide higher level of customer satisfaction.

Review a local , transactional e -commerce site

Beauty 360 ~ The source of Beauty

The Beauty 360 is the online shop that sell all the raw material of skincare, accessories and soap. It is very convenience for the people who do not have confident of the available skincare product in the market. It also allow the customer to customise their own skincare product based on own charactiristic.



The Beauty 360 not only sell the raw material of skincare product, it also provide recipes of making skincare product such as soap making with different essential oil will give what effect and suitable for which kind of skin.


When you log in to the Beauty 360 web page , the download speed is high and without lacking.the web page design and layout is simple and clearance. It give the visitor a comfortable experience when search their web page. It also contain two languages Mandarin and English allow the user to choose. The Beauty 360 has provides search engine allow the users have a quick find about their product.




The Beauty 360 provide detail information for each product its sells. For example if you want to buy a white Besswax, it will tells the user what heat the melting point is 61~65 degree. If the user want to purchase just click add to cart.




After confirm the purchase list, the Beauty 360 will provide a flow chart to let the buyers know how to make the payment . Beside that, the customer service provide by Beauty 360 are order FAQs, contact detail , library of all ingredients and 360 DIY center which provide the basic knowledge to make own skincare product.

references : http://www.beauty360degrees.com/

Pro And Cons From The Student Perspective on E-learning Offered In Malaysian Universities

E-learning is a modern process of education which many local universities have been implemented it beside than offered the traditional ways of learning to their students. E-learning is supported by the computer technologies. This learning experience takes place without face to face communication between the lecturers and his or her students. It is also known as distance learning. Instead of attending lectures and tutorials, students can access to universiti intranet to get those materials provided by their respective lecturers and tutors as when as they are needed it. Hence, student able to get latest news and upcoming events by surf the E-learning portal. E-learning was begun in the late 1980's in Malaysia. MARA University of Technology (UTM) is one of the universities that offered distance learning in 1990.Since E-learning has become more and more popular but it still have some pros and cons on it form the students perspectives.

From the perspective of students, E-learning enable them to save cost because they no need to print out the notes and exercises and it also environmental friendly. They can access to the notes and done the tutorial online whenever and wherever they desired as long as they can access to the Internet. Other than that, they can also reduce the cost of travel to campus for attend the classes.

Furthermore, the students can also enjoy the time flexibility provided by the E-learning. They can 'attend' lectures at anytime, anywhere they want as long as they can access to Internet. The E-learning is available 24x7 so they no need to scare about missing part of the notes. Students can get information easily through the portal such as lectures notes, tutorial's questions. Beside that, they can also communicate with their lecturers through online.

On the other hand, there are some cons in using the E-learning portal too. The first disadvantage of E-learning is lack of face-to-face communication between the lecturers and students. E-learning which promotes home-study has reduced the opportunity of students to meet their lecturers. As when they have problems regarding their subjects, they might not get instant reply from their lecturers as well as their lecturers might not free at that moment.

By having the E-learning it tends to make the students become lazy and ineffective, due to spoon fed by the educational institutions. Since having the E-learning, most educational tasks are done either by the tutor or some sophisticated software, leaving students with the simple task of just downloading notes and reading them. It runs the risk of creating lazy and dependent students. In the future, students tend to expect all the information will be delivered to them and would not seek information on their own.

Other than non-technological problems, students may also faced technological problems while using the E-learning. Computer and Internet connection play an important roles in this distance learning. Sometimes the Internet connection may be interrupt and will cause to ineffectiveness of getting the information from the portal.

Review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce Blog

After review on the Legal from e-commerce blog, I found that a lot of Internet users have unauthorized using their technical knowledge about technology and Internet to hack into the organization system to stole employees personal data and customers personal data. The potential risk of this action is the data could be used to apply loans or credit cards under false names. These hackers may abuse these confidential information for their personal purpose.

Online Fraud

On the other hand, some of the illegal company also using the Internet to cheat customer's money. Through review on the news that posted on the blog, I have been noticed that there are 66 people were cheated of their money after making Internet purchases of skincare products from someone named “Big Pussycat.”The victims made online transfers amounting to RM73,445.10 for the products which came under names such as “My Beauty” and “My Sherman Beauty” that had been advertised on “Big Pussycat's.” website.Since there are many victims cheated by online fraud, I would like to suggest several ways to prevent online fraud to all of you.

Ways to prevent online fraud:

1.Diversify your passwords. Many people use the same password for all their important internet access points. While this can make remembering the passwords easier, it also plays into the hands of internet crooks.

Tip: Use a different password at all sites to which you normally login. You can alter them by just a character or two if you want.

2. Never login to a site via an Email link. Reputable financial institutions or e-commerce sites will never send you an email which contains, in the body of the email message, the login and password fields.

Tip: Assume any unexpected email you get from a financial institution or other e-commerce site to be a scam unless you go directly to the site by typing in the URL into your browser and see the information verified there.

3.Know who you are doing business with. Whether you are purchasing items in an online auction or making a purchase from an online store, be sure to determine whether this business is reputable.

Tip: If you are making a large purchase, insist on having a phone number for the store and call it to confirm their identity. Check directory information for their city and make sure they exist. If the seller refuses to give you this information, do not do business with them.

SMS Spam

After review from the blog, I have found that there are some handphone users use the hanphone to do SMS spam.Some fraudster is trying to steal your personal information by tricking you with a text message or by getting you to go to a fake Web site and enter personal information, like your bank account login and password. SMS spamming is unwanted junk mail delivered as text messages to your cell phone. The Star newspaper has reported that after the recent SMS scam attack on Digi subscribers, now is the turn for Maxis subscribers to experience the similar SMS scam.

Subscribers will be informed through SMSes that they had won some cash worth a few thousands from Maxis. In order to withdraw the money, they were required to call a foreign 15 digits phone number to provide then with the bank account number.A Maxis spokeperson beside denying their involvement, also reminded the subscribers to ignore these types of SMSes. The SMS scams cases have increasing and cheated a lot of people. Those people who have received this type of SMS have to call back to the mobile services operators to make sure and check whether the SMS is really sent by the company.In addition, the government also should take action against those people who use SMS to cheat the customers.

Corporate Blogging:A new marketig communication tool for the companies

Nowadays, corporate blogging is very famous and common. Many company are using corporate blog as a communication tool and marketing strategies for the company. Corporate blogging use by the company to promoting and marketing their product, improving and building corporate image and other activtities.Participating in a blogging world gives companies a competitive edge and differenitiate it from competitors.

The corporate blogs, most can be categorized into internal blogs or external blogs.

Internal Blogs

Internal blogs,is a weblog that any employee can view and generally can access through corporation's Intranet. Many blogs are also communal,allowing anyone to post to them.

External Blogs

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. The corporate blog can interact with a target market on a more personal level while building link credibility that can ultimately be tied back to the corporate site.

On the other hand, the blogs are powerful tools of promoting business, it can help in interacting with the customers and display their feedback. Hence, the company can respond and react to their feedback quickly. When the other people view the comments of testimonials made by customers, they will aware about the company product. In addition, corporate blogging has became an advertising or marketing strategy because it provide a lot of information about the products and company. The customers can access to the blog anytime and at anywhere, and very convenience to them.

Corporate blogs have gain popularity globally.Acoording to market research done in the first half of 2006, indicated that 34% of large companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2006, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%.

There are some examples of corporate blogs that done successfully and have a very high numbersof suscribers. The official Google Blog is currently in the Technorati top 50 listing among all blogs worldwide.

Although there are many advantages of set up corporate blogs, there are also some disadvantages of create corporate blogs.

Pros of Corporate Blogs:

• As a competitive advantage for the company.
• Provide good customer service.
• Help to enhance corporate image.

Cons of Corporate Blogs:

• Time consuming to maintain.
• Low reliability because everyone can post their comments and opinions.

Electronic currency

Electronic Money (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, 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 money also encompasses payment systems that are analogous to traditional credit cards and checks. Here, cryptography protects conventional transaction data such as an account number and amount; a digital signature can replace a handwritten signature or a credit-card authorization, and public-key encryption can provide confidentiality.

ClickandBuy

ClickandBuy is one of the leading payment systems on the internet. More than 14,000 merchants benefit from this complete service in 26 countries, which includes 126 different currencies and 46 different payment methods. ClickandBuy is used by Apple iTunes, Skype, msn, T-Online, Electronic Arts, Meetic, Playboy, SanDisk, Yamaha, UNICEF and many more.

Payloadz

Payloadz offers secure digital goods e-commerce service for anyone who sell downloadable goods online. It provides a service to sell downloadable items such as:
Software, eBooks, music, movies, digital art, manuals, articles, certificates, forms, files, and anything else that can be downloaded.
Paystone Technologies Corporation is a private Internet payment and money transfer company dedicated to providing secure, easy and real time Internet transactions. It is founded in year 2001; Paystone has operations in the United States, Canada and the Philippines with International cash out capabilities in many other countries.

Paystone

Paystone provides an inexpensive online payment method without the risk of chargeback from fraudulent credit card use. Paystone can handle small financial transactions which we called micropayments as low as $0.25. The ability to process micropayments opens a whole new world for entrepreneurs of all sizes. Nowadays, a small business or an individual has a chance to generate revenue from their website quickly, easily and inexpensively. This makes a whole new range of content available to personal account holders. The large online merchant can also realize the full benefits of the Paystone in order to expand and increase the profitability of their business.

Digicash

Digicash’s mission is to create a new personalized dimension to the shopping experience. It transform online incentives into powerful new tools, establishing a strong, high-value connection between consumers and ecommerce companies. The Digicash Wallet, 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.

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.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumer adoption strategies

Malaysians now can make a wide range of purchase without cash, credit card and cheque.




Hong Leong bank Team Up with the Mobile Money to create Innovation to payment industry


Where the consumer required a mobile phone and can make any purchase in any where any time , whether in car, office and home.


Hong Leong Bank will team up with local Mobile Money international to introduce this innovative mobile payment which allow the consumer tp pay goods and services via SMS.



Maxis and MayBank testing Mobile phone payment


Maxis Communication Berhad is currently trialling a mobile phone multi payment service incorporating credit card and prepaid transit payments with maybank, Visa International and Tounch n Go.

Maxis touch n pay used Near field Communication (NFC) technology with short range wireless connectivity in mobile phone and this mobile phone current available om Nokia 6131 NFC phones.

• Low transaction and maintance costs


• Low startup or sign up fees


• No minumum monthly transaction, No rental fees


• No merchants account required
  
• Selling and buying to anyone , anywhere, & anytime


• Get paid fast and faster turnover in T= 2 days


• Flexible method to Request for Payment:Fixed line, SmS
  
• Good audit trail and secure tivketing


• Marketing & point system opportunity using mobile payment

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Benefit of Mobile PHONE

references : http://www.neowave.com.my/0doc/mobilemoneypaymentsystem.html