*Electronic currency*

Instead of using cash to expense, consumers able to make any payment through internet such as electronic currency. Electronic currentcy (e-currency) also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. This ia a very new market, which has been generated many payment systems online. E-currencies is a very exciting and lucrative business that you can operate anywhere in the world through the internet. Examples of electronic micropayment system that involves are PayLoadz, BitPass, Beenz, Peppercoin, Digitcash and others.

Let us study how well the e-currency work in the world!

How all this systems function?

Secure e-Book and PAYLOADZ

"EARN EASY MONEY FROM PAYLOADZ"

Payloadz is a service to sell intangible products such as softwares, e-books, digital art, manuals, articles and files. It is an automated delivery service. This means that seller can go on vacation without worrying about sending download links to the consumers every time a payment is made. These files can be either download via hyperlink or sent via e-mail based upon seller's product. Payloadz also has an easy intergration with paypal. Payloadz services can be used depending upon seller's sales and products file size.

Benefits:

• Secure file storage



• Automated delivery of your digital goods immediately after payment



• sell anywhere online: you can own site, our site, eBay and more.



• Support downloads and CD fulfillment
  

BITPASS

Bitpass was an online payment system for digital content and services. It was founded in December of 2002. Bitpass worked like a prepaid telephone card or Paypal. This stored-value amount could be used to purchase digital content or services. Bitpass enables online commerce by making it easy and safe to buy and sell. But, Bitpass was closed from 26 Jan 2007. Online payments have become more competitive over recent months.

Benefits:

• Save time. With Bitpass, you do not need to re-enter billing information with every new purchases.



• Protect your privacy. Bitpass shields your billing and contact information, giving you more control over your private data.



• Save money. Bitpass allows you to buy digital content in seconds, at hundreds of sites, and reduces the impact of credit card fees that would normally be passed on to the buyer.



• Make online shopping more convenient. Bitpass streamlines online purchases and subscriptions, and gives you an easy way to pay for small-ticket itmes.



• Access high-quality content. Bitpass enabled sites offer a wide variety of independent content that is hard to find elsewhere.

With electronic currency, it able to make visitors and customers more profitable!!

Sources: http://www.gold-pages.net/BitPass.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/bitpass

https://www.payloadz.com/

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

Mobile payment (also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing) is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, SmartPhone, Personal Digital Assistant(PDA) or other such device. The consumers can pay without needed cash,cheque or even their credit card. However, mobile payment is still not very popular in Malaysia. Currently, there are only some of the companies adopt mobile payment system such as Maxis, MayBank, CIMB and etc.

Mobile Money or MM Wallet is one of the online payment. MM Wallet unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using a mobile phone coupled with 6 digit security PIN via sms. This can give the freedom to the consumers to buy things online and pay the merchant using mobile phone without being physically present at the store .

Mobile payment system provide a safe and secure condition for consumers as well as merchant. With mobile payment, consumers do not have to be concern of cash, cheque or credit card handling problems or fraud. Furthermore, it is very fast and efficient. Mobile Money guarantees that merchants are paid in 2 working days. Normal credit card or cheque will require at least 3 to 4 days for clearance. Besides, there are also no minimum monthly transaction, no rental fee and even no Merchant Account is required.

Mobile payment system is an easy and convenient way to make payment. It is especially useful for the person who are lazy to wait a long queue to make payment or even the person who is busy and do not have time to go to make payment. I think mobile payment will become more and more popular in our country in the future.

References:

www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

http://www.wikipedia.com/

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process if attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as trustwothy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter detail at website. Phishing technique was describes in 1987 and first record use in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing probably influence by phreaking and alludes to baits used to catch financial information and password.

Examples of Phishing:
In an example PayPal phish (right), spelling mistakes in the e-mail and the presence of an IP address in the link are both clues that this is a phishing attempt. A legitimate Paypal communication will always greet the user with his or her real name, not just with a generic greeting . Note that many phishing emails will include, as a real email from PayPal would, large warnings about never giving out your password in case of a phishing attack.

Another example of Phishing form eBay:

Next, Phising example is sample bogus e-mail from Citibank:

Prevention of Phishing:

1) Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites.

This approach is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check websites against the list. It is switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains.

2) Helping to identify legitimate sites
Preventing it depends on some reliable way to determine a website's real identity.

3) Augmenting password logins.

The website ask users to select a personal image, and display this user-selected image . The users are instructed to enter a password only when they see the image they selected.

4) Eliminating phishing mail.

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees' inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails

5) Monitoring and takedown.

Several offer likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites.

References: http://www.wikipedia.com/

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

What is a 3rd party certification? 3rd party certification is a way to provide a better assurance to the business and the consumer. It is actually achieved by displaying an independent organization's trust mark or seal on an approved participant's web site. One of the 3rd party certification program is VeriSign. VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets.

How does it work? An SSL Certificate establishes a private communication channel enabling encryption of the data during transmission. Encryption scrambles the data, essentially creating an envelope for message privacy. Each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a Web browser points to a secured domain, a Secure Sockets Layer handshake authenticates the server (Web site) and the client (Web browser).

Furthermore, every VeriSign® SSL Certificate is created for a particular server in a specific domain for a verified business entity. When the SSL handshake occurs, the browser requires authentication information from the server. If the information does not match or the certificate has expired, the browser displays an error message or warning.

VeriSign is the most recognized name in online security. It provide an easy and reliable way to the web site visitors to establish trust online.

Reference:

http://www.verisign.com/

How safeguard our personal and financial data?

As the technology underlying e-commence has become more complex and more intertwined, the opportunities for intrusion and attack have increased. Teenage hackers, industrial spies, corporate insiders, agents of foreign governments, and criminal elements have taken advantage of the situation.

Let's look at some ways to protect your all-important user data from loss and/or unauthorised access!!

• Strong passwords
  

If criminals or other malicious users steal this information, they can use your name to open new credit card accounts, apply for a mortgage, or pose as you in online transactions. In many cases you would not notice these attacks until it was too late.

The secure way is to use proper passwords, but please avoid sequences or repeated characters. such as"12345678," "222222," "abcdefg," or adjacent letters. Besides, make the password lengthy. Each character that you add to your password increases the protection that it provides many times over. Your passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or longer is ideal.

• Biometric systems

Fingerprint scanners, iris scanners, facial recognition systems, and voice recognition all are examples of biometric systems that recognize a person by a physical trait. Biometric systems can identify a person by matching the individual's biometric traits against a previously stored version. Thus, the company consume this systems can make the value products more secure.

• Firewall

Basically, a firewall is a barrier to keep destructive forces away from your property. In fact, that's why its called a firewall. Its job is similar to a physical firewall that keeps a fire from spreading from one area to the next. As you read through this article, you will learn more about firewalls, how they work and what kinds of threats they can protect you from. For example, you often hear people in companies say things like, "I can't use that site because they won't let it through the firewall."

One of the best things about a firewall from a security standpoint is that it stops anyone on the outside from logging onto a computer in your private network. While this is a big deal for businesses, most home networks will probably not be threatened in this manner. Still, putting a firewall in place provides some peace of mind.

• Encryption

Encryption is one of the safeguard. Encryption is the conversion of data into a secret code for storage in the databases and transmission over network. The sender uses an encryption algorithm to convert the original message into a coded equivalent. At the receiving end the cipher text is decoded back into clear text. This can prevent leaking and lost of data.

Video: Clip on it~~ It is an example of tape ecryption

Sources :

Efraim Turban, Electronic Commerce A managerial perspective, 2006

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1OPbg3PS-s

Revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay

Revenue models analysis and customer adoption trends is essential in order to plan a portal venture successfully. The five basic portal revenue models are access revenues, advertising revenues, subscription revenues, transaction revenues, and micro-transaction revenues.
In the face of slowing subscriber growth, mobile operators are concentrating on data services. Revenue for network operators will increasingly be derived from data access. The major operators such as NTT DoCoMo are attempting to maintain their control over the data services customers will access. The network operators developing their own versions of these services with other firms to acquire them. Thus, the operators are positioning themselves as gatekeepers, charging customers an access fee to connect with their service and content providers.

Advertising revenues are derived from companies paying a fee to advertise their products on a portal site. In the web portal space, Google, Amazon and eBay are advertising or direct marketing funded. On the surface, the content appears to come at a bargain price, but deeper analysis reveals that the price is sustained by advertising. Internet advertising is more than the selling of visual-impact ads; it is also the sale of direct links from highly used portals to transactional sites.
Subscription Revenues models are designed to obtain up-front payments from customers for access to specific services or content. Subscription fees are usually billed monthly. Delinquent accounts can be canceled immediately. However, a customer who wants to cancel an online subscription often finds that the process takes considerable effort. Many subscription services consider the monthly payment more important than a simplified cancellation process, since cancellations mean churn. Adding new subscribers is more expensive and time-consuming than retaining current ones. The subscription model attracts customers with services that enable them to maintain continuous contact with the company.

Transaction revenue models included a match-maker and distribution. In the match-maker model, the supplier, not the intermediary, owns the product. The portal revenues are based on the net revenue or the commission it receives from the product's sale. In some cases, the fee is levied to both supplier and the buyer, and is typically .05-3.0 percent. Commercial transaction-based sites range from eBay to priceline.com. In the distributor model, the intermediary takes ownership of the product, it realizes the total revenues it gets off the product's sale. For example, a supplier purchases a product for $1.00 and resells it for $2.00. The $1.00 is the supplier's margin before costs. Once cost is factored in, however, the gross margin can be substantially less. Amazon.com is a typical example of this model. Micro-transaction revenues are based on a simple pay-as-you-go service and are essentially one-time pay-per-use transactions ranging from a few cents to several dollars. The Finland-based company Sonera is the leader in experimenting with many micro-transaction scenarios. The micro-transaction's cost is added to the customer's phone bill. A flexible billing system is essential to making micro-transaction point-of-sale services feasible. However, some web survivors are finally realizing profits, e.g., Autobytel, MarketWatch.com, and Amazon.com, to name a few.

An example of an e-commerce failure and its causes

Webvan was an online ' credit and delivery ' grocery business, it company's headquatered in Foster City California, USA, which is nearby Silicon Valley. There strategic business is have try to deliver products to customers' within 30 minute window of their choosing and it offered service in ten United Stated markets. There are San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chigago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Sacramento and Orange country. The company had originally hoped to expand to 26 cities.

Webvan was founded in the heyday of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. The founder of Webvan is Louis Borders, who also co-founded the Borders Bookstore in 1971. Webvan's original investor included Goldman Sachs and Yahoo, who encouraged it to rapidly build its own infrastruture (the first mover advantages strategy popularized by Amazon.com)to deliver groceries in a number of cities.

Webvan was closed in July 2001, the causes of Webvan's closed down was none of Webvan's senior executives (or major investors) had any management experience in the supermarket industry, including its CEO George Shaheen who had resigned as head of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), a management consulting firm, to join the venture. The another cause is the money spent on infrastructure far exceed their sales growth and the company eventually ran out of money, for example, Webvan placed a 1 billion (USD) order with engineering company Bechtel to build its warehouse, bought a fleet of delivery trucks, purchased 30 Sun Mircosystems Enterprise 4500 servers, dozen of Compaq ProLiant Computers and several Cisco systems model 7513 and 7507 routes as well as more than 80 12-inch view sonic colors monitors and at least 115 Herman Miller Aeron Chairs (at over $800 each). Besides, Webvan tried to embrace a total customer satisfaction model without considering that customer especially working customers would like their groceries delivered at night .

From this, Webvan is unable to survive because of lack of management experience and grow its business too fast. Thus, its best to have a good plan and not grow too fast and too soon.

References: www.cnet.com

The history and evolution of E-commerce

Actually, do you all know what is meant by e-commerce? Let me explain to you all now, simply put, e-commerce is the online transaction of business, featuring linked computer systems of the vendor, host and buyer. Electronic transactions involve the transfer of ownership or rights to use a good or service.

E-commerce began before personal computers were prevalent and has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, but where it come from? By looking at the evolution of e-commerce, it will be easier to judge its trends for the future.

E-commerce were first developed in the early 1970's. It was using technology like electronic fund transfer (EFT) and Eletronic Data Interchange (EDI) . With this technology, it allows the users to exchange business information and do electronic transaction. Furthermore, Netscape arrived in 1995. It provide users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer. There are two biggest names in e-commerce lauched in 1995, which are Amazon.com and eBay.com. These are the first internet companies that allow eletronic transaction and it had succeed. Nowadays, the top five largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers are Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hawlett Packard. Moreover, DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

The growth of Internet has a special significance in the growth of e-commerce. It has the potential to involve general people into the process, thereby increasing its reach far beyond large companies. E-commerce will be widely used as the medium of transaction and become a neccessity in the world in the future.

References: newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu

www.mapsofworld.com

¨ An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

The last few years have seen the rise of extremely successful virtual E-commence companies, such as eBay, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, and Checkpoint. Click-and-mortar companies such as Cisco, General Electric, IBM, Intel, and Schwab also have seen great success. Aditional success stories include start-ups such as Alloy.com, Drugstore.com, FTD.com, and Camusfood.com

The Success Story Of E-BAY

E-bay is online auction Web site was founded in San Jose, California on 3 September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, who was computer programmer. Auction web is part of a larger personal site that included. In 2005, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category, breaking into the industrial surplus business. Million of items are buying, selling, or exchanging products or services and information daily. Anything can be sold as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.

Objective of ebay is to reduce costs, increase customer service levels and company profitability. By receiving hundreds of millions of auction details from eBay, the services provide up-to-date and 100% reliable information about the eBay environment. Thus EBay makes it easy to reach a vast market of potential customers.

Ebay become more famous where there are more than 2 million new items are added to the eBay marketplace, more than 10 million bids are placed, and more than 100,000 people to trade with others through eBay. Besides, eBay currently has over 69,000,000 registered users! EBay being a wider market which is accepted by wide range of people. Customer can create a home based business with low cost, unlike most other business opportunities that require a lot of capital to get started. eBay also allows user to run a business that requires NO ADVERTISING COSTS. eBay is contributed trust and realiable place to trade. In addition, it also provide confidence to buyer and seller to trade. A part from this, However, buyer and seller to have more chance to trade when they visit this large market portion in order to achieve their satisfaction. As a result, eBay became successful when it reached globally to million of people to enable them to make a business for their own.

(support by :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebay)

Self-introduction~ Shirley

Before study this subject, i don't actually know what is blog. I only know how to create friendster. Actually blog is quite similar to friendster. Now i basically know what is blog. Let me first introduce myself, my name is Chen Wai Leng. Everyone also call Wai Leng. But i prefer my friend call me ah leng. This can feel more closely. I born in Ipoh Jaya, Perak. Ipoh is a place where has different types of famous food, such as Chicken noodle, Carry chicken bread and others. If who has interested, i can travelled with you but you must treat me.. haha..

I am currently pursuing my degree in University Tunku Abdul Rahman in Bandar Sungai Long. I am currently staying in Scot pine condominium. I am having a Bachelor of accounting (hons) commence course in the post-undergraduate level. In the middle of 2009, i will graduate. I have several plans after i have graduate. Where should i apply the work? Singapore? Big Four? Work in Singapore is very tough for Malaysian. I had been heard that most of singaporean will look down Malaysian and purposely give lot work to them to do. That why Malaysian will feels stress work in there. However, Big Four not easy to apply, it require minimum qualified of CGPA 3.5 and above. That why i need to study hard to achieve my target.

Youtube.com and Baidu.com are my favourite website for entertainment. Besides, Google.com, Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com are famous for me to searching information. It is useful for search information about the unknown, check email for communication and to enhance my knowledge.

I enjoyed the sport most. I love to play badminton, swimming and etc. .. I always believe that exercising will lead us to good health. Besides, it can also enhance our stamina level, reflection, alertness, and so on. Our relationships could be even better via sports.

Self-introduction~Yong

My name is Yong Teck Li. You can call me Teck Li. My age is my secret so let you all guess how old am I la.haha...My horoscope is scorpio. my hometown is at Sibu, Sarawak.(so far,right?) Everytime have to take flight only can back to my hometown. Therefore, I only back to hometown during semester break. Now, I'm study at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), taking Bachelor in Commerce (Hons) Accounting. I will graduate in May 2009 and can go to work sooner. However, before I graduate I need to study very hard and work hard because this is my last year so it will be very tough for me. A lot of assignment need to do and also thesis.

My hobbies are watching movie, shopping and travelling. I like to watch movie and drama very much,most of it are Korean drama.Whenever I free, I sure will sit in front of the computer to watch Korean drama. The Korean drama are borrw from friends or download from internet.Besides, I will date my friends out to watch movie in cinema during weekend. During weekend, I will go shopping also. I often go to Mid Valley, KLCC, Pavillion, Times Square.

The top five website that I visited the most are www.google.com, I can find information when I need to do my assignment and even the tutorial answer.This website is very useful to me. The second website is wble.utar.edu.my. I can download lecture notes, tutorial and even get to know my coursework mark in this website. Sometimes, the lecturer also have some announcement in wble. The third website is www.skyme.com,

this website enable me to download the latest Korean drama. So, I do not worry that I do not have new Korean drama to watch.haha... I also visit www.friendster.com, I can make new friends around the world and connect with my friends. Sometimes, I also upload some new or funny photo in friendster. The fifth website is www.chinapress.com.my, I do not buy newspaper so, I read it daily at this website to know what is happen in this society.

Self-introduction-Cheryl

Hello,welcome to my blog. I am Cheryl Chin, 20 years old. I'm come from Perak.I am taking Bachelor in Commerce (Hons) Accounting in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). Now I'm study year 3 semester 1,this is my final year and also a very hard,busy year in UTAR. I hope I can enjoy my last year UTAR life.

My hobbies are watching movie, shopping, listening music, sing k and others.I like to watch movie so I will watching movie whenever I free.Sometimes, I even continue to watch until did not sleep.I also go to sing k and shopping quite often.Sometimes after I finished my class, then I will go to sing k and shopping with my friends. As you know, there are a lot shopping center here so, everytime can go different shopping center to shop.

The five website that I visit the most are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.friendster.com, www.tom365.com and www.haoting.com. I can search information through the google and yahoo. This is very useful to me when I need find information to do my assignment. I use friensters to keep conduct with all my friend among the world and I can make more friends in different country. I also can view the lastest photo or blogs posted by my friends. Tom365 is a free movie download website,I can download all the latest movie from this website. The haoting website can let me download the latest songs.

Lastly, thanks for you all visit my blog and hope you all will enjoy it because this is my first time blogging here so, may be do not write it very well.

Self-introduction~ Angel

Hi, welcome to my blog. This is first time I start blogging here and so fresh to me. Now, let me introduce myself first. My name is Chong An Chyi, and you all can call me An Chyi or Angel. I am 20 years old, my horoscope is Virgo. I come from Perak and currently I located at Sungai Long,Kajang.

Currently, I am study at University Tunku Abdul Rahman(UTAR). Now, I am post-undergraduate student who is taking Bachelor in Commerce (Hons) Accounting. This is my final year in UTAR and complete my degree in May 2009. After graduate, I decide to go to Singapore to start my career (because can earn more money ...hahaha)

My hobbies are watching movie, listening music, sing K, shopping, and etc. I like to watch movie very much, I can even watch it even do not sleep (very crazy right? haha...). Besides, I also like to sing k and shopping very much. I like to listen to diffent types of song. Currently, I'm interest in Thai's song much.

The website that I visit the most are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.friendster.com, www.tom365.com, and www.haoting.com. I almost visit google and yahoo website because I can search information through this two website about assignment. Sometimes, I even find the tutorial answer through this and also check mail. I use frienster to keep in touch with my friends that I can't meet them often. Besides, I also can make new friends, not only from Malaysia but all over the world, such as Hong Kong, Singapore and etc. I also visit www.tom365.com which consist of varities of drama and movies. I almost use this website to download drama and movies. Furthermore, I always download the new song through the haoting website. Throughout this, you can simply found that internet is become integral part of my life. So, without internet, my life become very bored and may be I can't survive (hahaha...just kidding only)

Lastly, Hope you all can enjoy with my blog and have a nice day ya!!!