A battle among the titans of the Internet

Fancy the competition among Yahoo, Google and Microsoft?

Internet powerhouses Yahoo and eBay are joining forces in aliance to complete with Google and Microsoft in the quest to become the most powerful players in the online market.

Competition faced by Yahoo and ebay:

• Google continues to expand its lead in search while offering new services that pose new threats.
• Google has invaded eBay's turf by offering a free classified listing service as well as a payment service.
• Microsoft has vowed to invest heavily in the Internet during the next year, focusing on building a better online advertising platform.

Under the multiyear partnership announced Thursday, both Yahoo and ebay will draw upon each other's strengths in online advertising, payments and communications so they can connect with even more Web surfers than they already do.

Full article is here.

Pay-per-call in Internet Advertising

Familiar with pay-per-click?
It is a situation where advertisers pay when they receive a click.

How about pay-per-call?
Pay-per-call ads work in a similar way to pay-per-click ads, except that advertisers pay when they receive a phone call rather than a click.

Read this story on Pay-per-Call here.

Lecture 8 - Online Advertising

Marketing through the mobile in India

New marketing tools such as mobile coupons, location specific services, mobile portals and advertising on the mobile are just few of the tools being deployed by marketers to reach the 90 million strong mobile subscribers base in India.

These new marketing tools are also known as the 2nd generation of mobile marketing.

Applications:

• Wireless marketing technology provider Activemedia Technologies has partnered with mobile operator Hutchison Essar to deliver m-coupons, which can be cashed across 40 retail outlets such as Barista, Domino's Pizza, Lifestyle and Kaya Skin Clinic.

• Airtel has joined with Enpocket, a global leader in intelligent mobile marketing, to give advertisers a convenient, effective way to reach a major cross-section of the country's population.

• Mobile2win is in talks with mobile operators to start location-based services that will enable marketers to reach out to the prospective customer while he is in the vicinity of the outlet by giving various incentives and offers.

Lecture 11 - Mobile Commerce.

Full story is available here.

E-Commerce Credit Card Fraud

An interesting case study on e-commerce credit card fraud in US.

According to Celent Communications, an international consultancy group, the United States alone faces US$3.2 billion of online credit card fraud by 2007.

Results from various surveys and reports were discussed such as:

• nine out of ten Americans want their banks to monitor their online accounts for suspicious behavior
• 79 percent surveyed said they were less likely to respond to e-mail from their bank because of worry over phishing scams

Company: US Digital Media
Problem: US Digital Media lost upwards of $200,000 due to e-commerce credit card fraud
Solution: Automated Fraud Prevention

Full story is here.

Cambodia bans 3G mobile phones to curb porn

Without 3G mobile phones, how the prospect of having 3G Services in Cambodia will be?

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday banned video-capable mobile phones in Cambodia to curb the dissemination of pornography, because they can be used to spread obscene images.

"Maybe we can wait for another 10 years or so until we have done enough to strengthen the morality of our society,'' he said. Alcatel, a French telecommunications firm, announced in February that it would provide 3G mobile services to CamGSM, a Cambodian mobile phone network.

Alcatel officials in France were not immediately available for comment Friday. Hun Sen said Cambodia is facing a severe decline in social morality and that curbing pornography is one way to help rescue the country.

The third-generation mobile phone "is way too advanced for us. Hearing each other's voices and exchanging text messages should be enough. If we go further than this, it could be more difficult for us to control'' pornography, he added.

***********************

More stories on 3G developments in other countries:

• 3G soon in China
• Russia- the next country for 3G
  

Double digits growth forecasted for Online Retail Sales

Online sales are projected to hit more than US$200 billion in 2006 as compared to US$176.4 billion in 2005, an increase of almost 20%.

• Travel is the largest type of product bought online (almost 1/3 of all online purchases).
• No. 2 is buying computer hardware and software online.
• Buying autos and auto parts online is No. 3

The main reason for this rising retail sales online is because consumers are becoming more comfortable with using the Internet which has been a hurdle for online retails sales in the past.

At the same time, retailers are trying to integrating their stores with more access to the web by having in-store kiosks that let customers order online if they don't find the right product in the store.

Don't miss out this interesting development by reading this article.

This article is related to Lecture 6 and 8.

Online Video Advertising Launched by Google

Google has taken the wraps off plans to sell video advertising online, an ambitious move that could unlock significant additional growth potential for the search giant.

Google said it was adding video ads to meet the needs of its advertisers, some of whom, such as movie studios, need a fully interactive experience to deliver their messages.

For more reading, click here.

This is a new online marketing tool that companies may consider in the near future. (Lecture 8 - Consumer Behaviour and Online Advertising)

The costliest web access on Earth is in Africa

According to the news published in TheStar InTech (23 May 2006, pg 27),

• African Internet users pay on average 90 times what US surfers pay - US$20 (RM76) for 1 gigabyte of data per month for US surfers but African users have to pay US$1800 (RM6840) for the same amount of data.

Why the costs of data and voice communications in Africa is the highest in the world?

• The infrastructure-strapped continent spends millions of dollars every year to route data and voice traffic from one African country to another through Europe or North American.

Only 1.5% of the 906 million of Africa's population are connected to Internet as compared to 70% of people in Hong Kong and 40% of Malaysian are online.


This is what we called "Digital Divide" - The gap between those who have and those who do not have the ability to access eclectronic technology in general and the Internet and E-Commerce in particular. This will also be causing unbalanced growth and crippling the efforts by the world's poorest continent to become competitive in a global economy driven by communications.

Welcome to UBAI3013 May 2006

A warmest welcome for all the UBAI3013 E-Commerce - May Semester 2006.

Some facts for this semester:
1100 students from BBA (530+), BCA (540+) and BEN (30).
45 tutorial classes - 21 (BBA), 22 (BCA) and 2 (BEN).

Some changes compared to last semester:
Tutorial classes will commence on the 1st week instead of 2nd week.
Tutorial hours is now become 1.5 hours instead of an hour previously.
Lecture hours reduced to 2 hours.


Hope this semester will be an enjoyable learning session for everyone.

From the teaching team.

Supplementary List and News Updates

On Supplementary Exam
Supplementary List was out on Wednesday. Overall 19 students from BA and 16 students from AC were eligible for the supplementary paper on 4th May 2006.

Moments after the list being released, I had students e-mailing and looking for me and my co-lecturer, asking for specific tips and focus areas. My answer is very straightforward - There is NO SHORTCUT in everything especially in the learning process. The most pathetic situation is when the students do not have any other questions to ask except for the two specific questions.

May seem a bit cold-blooded but as I mentioned many times during the lectures, given the second chance doesn't mean allowing the students to obtain the objective of passing the examination by using shortcuts, in this case by providing tips and specific focus area in order to pass all of them, to make the passing rate look presentable. This is not the main purpose of education.

Well, I wish you all the best again.


On income tax e-filling
As the deadline for tax-submission is drawing near (30th April 2006), in a move to encourage the general taxpayers to go online, Malaysian government is extending the deadline for e-filling submission to 31st May 2006. This the 1st time that e-filling is being implemented in Malaysia as part of the e-government initiatives.


On Microsoft go for war with pirated windows-software
Microsoft has launched an intiative to counter attack pirated operating systems users by having a new patch which will be automatically updated into the computers when it goes online, with the effect of having a permenant label at the windows screen to remind the users that they are using the pirated version of the software. Pop-ups screen will also be exercised along this initiatives. Users can choose to ingnore the label if they intend to continue using the software. However, it will caused embrassment when their customers see these label on their computer screen.


On Pirated VCDs
Last Friday, one of the government agency has sued a shopping complex in Kuantan for letting its tenants to sell pirated DVD and VCD in its premises. The results - no more DVD and VCD in most of the shopping complexes. Where to get it now? You guess........


On Mobile Credit Card
Visa International has launched a testing on the implementation of mobile credit card in several countries including Malaysia. A few selected users were involved in this exercise.


HAPPY HOLIDAY for all.

UBAI3013 - Happy Examination for JAN 2006 class

Dear all BBA and BCA students,

Wishing all of you best of luck and hope you will enjoy the final examination on Tuesday afternoon.

Mr Hen

Another company sued for Internet Privacy

As additional story for Lecture 11, a company in US is currently being sued for selling email addresses.

Source of information: www.cnn.com

Suit alleges Internet privacy breach

Friday, March 24, 2006; Posted: 8:19 a.m. EST (13:19 GMT)
ALBANY, New York (AP) -- New York's attorney general sued an Internet company Thursday over the selling of e-mail addresses in what authorities say may be the biggest deliberate breach of Internet privacy ever.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Gratis Internet of selling personal information obtained from millions of consumers despite a promise of confidentiality.

The consumers thought they were simply registering to see a Web site offering free iPod music players or DVD movies and video games, Spitzer spokesman Brad Maione said. On sign-up pages, Gratis promised it "does not ... sell/rent e-mails."

Instead of confidentiality, Spitzer said, Gratis sold access to their e-mail information to three independent e-mail marketers, and hundreds of millions of e-mail solicitations followed.

In a statement, Gratis said the allegations that it sold e-mail addresses to e-mail marketers, and that these companies purchased personal user information from Gratis, were "completely untrue."

The company said it hired Datran Media of New York City, a leading e-mail marketer, to manage "the logistics of marketing products and services via e-mail to Gratis' own user base." It said Datran or two other hired companies "at no time ever engaged in a sale or purchase of data."

Gratis, based in Washington, D.C., always controlled and owned the users' information and never profited from any sale of data, the company said.

On March 12, Spitzer sued Datran Media, accusing it of using unauthorized personal data "mined" by other firms from about 6 million e-mail addresses nationwide. Datran agreed to reform its practices under a $1.1 million settlement.

"Unless checked now, companies that collect and sell information on consumers will continue to find ways to erode the basic standards that protect privacy in the Internet age," Spitzer said.

Spitzer's "data mining" investigation began last year amid reports of companies compiling and selling marketing lists.

Gratis owns and operates Web sites that offer free merchandise for registering their e-mail addresses. The state fraud lawsuit accuses its owners, Peter Martin and Robert Jewell, of privacy violations in 2004 and 2005.

Spitzer claims Gratis wrongly shared as many as 7 million "user records," creating the largest deliberate breach of a privacy policy discovered by U.S. law enforcement. He said the company's promises to consumers included: "We will never give out, sell or lend your name or information to anyone," and "We will never lend, sell or give out for any reason your e-mail address or personal information."

SMS - how big is the market.

Another good article from New Straits Times, 16th March 2006

The SMS world

March 16:

---

How big is the market

BY mid-2004, texts were being sent at a rate of 500 billion messages per annum. At an average cost of US$0.10 (37 sen) per message, this generates more than US$50 billion for mobile telephone operators and represents close to 100 text messages for every person in the world.


How popular

THE term "texting" (the act of sending short messages back and forth) has entered the common lexicon.

Take a bow, Philippines. This is the world’s most avid SMS nation. SMS is a part of almost all marketing campaigns, advocacy, and entertainment. In fact, SMS is so inexpensive (messages cost PHP 1.00 (0.07 sen) to send), that several local dotcoms like Chikka Messenger, GoFISH Mobile, and Bidshot now fully utilise SMS for their services.


Not big on SMS

CURIOUSLY, France has not taken to SMSing, sending just under 20 messages on average per user per month. Some people say that this may be down to cultural factors — text messaging is associated with a fast pace of life and France is more reluctant than other nations to dispense with its traditions.


Text speak

BECAUSE of the limited message lengths and tiny user interface of mobile phones, SMS users commonly make extensive use of abbreviations, particularly the use of numbers for words (for example, "4" in place of the word "for"), the omission of vowels, as in the phrase "txt msg".

Historically, this language developed out of shorthand used in chatrooms on the Internet, where users would abbreviate some words to allow a response to be typed more quickly. However, this became much more pronounced in SMS.

In Mandarin, numbers that sound similar to words are used in place of those words. For example, the numbers 520 in Chinese ("wu er ling") sound like the words for "I love you" ("wo ai ni"). The sequence 748 ("qi si ba") sounds like the curse for "drop dead".

Website portals such as transl8it! have supported community of users to help standardise this text speak by allowing users to submit translations, staking claim with their user handle, or to submit top messages and guess the lingo phrases. The international popularity of this portal resulted in the late 2005 publishing of the transl8it! dxNRE & glosRE (dictionary & glossary) as the worlds first, and most complete SMS and text lingo book.


SMS abuse

IN December 2005, text messaging was cited for helping to incite the Sydney race riots. Text messaging being very popular in Australia, the SMS messages assisted in mobilising about 5,000 white Australians to engage in violence against those of Middle Eastern origin.

SMS - a new record for Malaysian!

The usage of SMS among Malaysian has hit another new height with a new record being set in 2005 - 21.03 billion short message service (SMS) text messages with 6 billions sent during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Deepavali, Christmas and Chinese New Year seasons.

Comparatively, in 2004 handphone users sent 9.53 billion SMS messages, of which 4.94 billion were sent during the four festivals.

Just recall back on our own experiences on how many SMS that we sent and received during this period.

Akademi Fantasia - 12 million sms votes - vote for Mawi
Malaysian Idol - 1.67 million - vote for Daniel
8TV SuperStar - another new record?

May be UTAR can help to increase this usage by having SMS voting on UTAR Search etc.

Below is an article taken from New Straits Times, 16th March 2006.

The 21 billion SMS phenomenon

March 16:

---

MALAYSIANS sent a stunning 21.03 billion short message service (SMS) text messages last year, more than twice as many as in 2004.


More than six billion of these were sent during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Deepavali, Christmas and Chinese New Year seasons.

In 2004, handphone users sent 9.53 billion SMS messages, of which 4.94 billion were sent during the four festivals.

These figures were disclosed by Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik in the Dewan Rakyat, in a written reply to Razali Ibrahim (BN-Muar).

The sharp growth suggests that Malaysians are becoming increasingly comfortable with using this service, because it is cheaper and easier than most other modes of communication.

The popularity of SMS has been phenomenal. Apart from it being widely used to send festive greetings, many contests and reality shows on TV and radio allow participants to respond via SMS.

The conclusion of the third season of the Akademi Fantasia reality talent show, for instance, had the organisers’ hands full with 12 million SMS votes, most of which were for runaway winner Mawi.

The SMS boom for the show was felt in its second season in 2004, when the public responded with an astounding 20 million SMS messages within 10 weeks.

Another popular talent show was Malaysian Idol which also pulled in the SMS. Last season’s final had fans keying in 1.67 million messages.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission in its Handphone Users Survey 2005 reported that 84.9 per cent of cellphone users sent at least one SMS a day, and 49.6 per cent sent at least five daily.

This was an increase from the previous year, when only 74.9 per cent sent at least one SMS a day and 31.7 per cent sent at least five a day, the report noted.

There are now about 17 million cellphone subscriptions in Malaysia on the five digital networks, with a huge majority of nearly 80 per cent in the 20-49 age-group.

MAS & Octopus Travel collaboration

MAS signed an agreement with Octopus Travel for enabling MAS tickets to be purchase via the online travel and tourist company in 14 countries.

"We have seen an emerging trend of Internet savvy customers who no longer depend on traditional sales channels for their travel arrangements," Abdul Rashid Khan, Malaysia Airlines commercial director told reporters.

Rashid Khan said Malaysia Airlines expects to increase revenue by 20 million ringgit through ticket sales (5.4 million dollars) in the first year through the tie-up with Octopus.

Abdul Rashid said presently ticket sales through the Internet was low. "At the moment it is low. It is below 10 percent," he said.

For more, read here.

RFID - An Introduction

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) was invented more than 50 years ago but has so far failed to live up to its promise to connect everyday things through a wireless network and make it possible, in theory, to track every item ever produced.

Computer scientists dub RFID "The Internet of Things," in which anything from shampoo bottles to marathon runners can be tracked using radio tags. Criticism from some camps is that the technology can lead to an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

www.cnn.com Technology segment have a comprehensive discussion on RFID. Read here.

Wikipedia provides a detail explaination on RFID. Click here.

Small business computing.com also provide a brief definition here.

The Free Dictionary.com - here.

Finally, a blog specialised on RFID which worth looking into.

Spamming - Found guilty! and pay US$ 1.1 million

If you think of going for spamming, think twice. You may end up paying more........

An e-mail marketing company, Datran Media Corp. has agreed to pay US$1.1 million to settle accusations that it misused personal data reportedly mined from 6 million e-mail addresses across the country.

Datran sends marketing e-mail messages to addresses provided by partner companies, a practice that some people consider "spam."

Its clients include Business Week, Columbia House, Fox Home Entertainment, NASCAR, Orbitz and Pitney Bowes, according to its Web site

Read more here. (www.cnn.com)

RFID in Europe

Still remember RFID? Radio Frequency Identification. Here is a story on the application of RFID in Europe which comes together with the concern for privacy issues.

Issue:

Europe is feeling pressure to boost its efforts to speed the global adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID), a wireless technology already used by U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart for much of its merchandise and shipping operations. It is used not only commercially in the U.S., but is also an important part of some new passports in America.

The European government and industry leaders stressed the need to balance privacy and the potential for misuse with the need to adopt RFID across industry to be competitive in the world.

While Europe lags behind the U.S. in terms of its embrace of RFID -- a worrisome technology to privacy watchdogs -- the U.S. is not speeding through its RFID adoption either

RFID will become increasingly important in terms of security and being able to keep track of shipping.

Main challenge:

The main difference between the U.S. and Europe on the matter of RFID and privacy is that European law already governs what information can or cannot be collected on individuals

More reading here (www.ecommercetimes.com)

Amazon.com going for digital movie download soon

Fancy downloading latest movies from Amazon.com for a small amount of fee...This service is coming soon to the web users once the negotiations with the major movie studios namely Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios & Warner Bros completed.

Amazon.com is in talks with three Hollywood studios about starting a service that would allow consumers to download movies and TV shows for a fee and burn them onto DVDs.

By then Amazon will be competing with Apple's iTunes in the world of digital downloads.

A digital deal with the studios would allow Amazon to substantially lower its inventory, shipping and labor costs and avoid returns of movies.

Competitions:

Wal-Mart and Target are also reportedly in talks with the studios about digital download services, and video-on-demand movie rental services like MovieBeam and Movielink are enjoying heavy studio investments.

Read more here (from www.ecommercetimes.com)

Toys 'R' Us to End Amazon Partnership

Latest development in the e-tailing giants Toys 'R' Us and Amazon.com

The partnership started 10 years ago is going to end very soon as internal conflicts, introduction of other sellers in the website and other reasons.

"Toys 'R' Us sued Amazon in May of 2004, seeking to terminate an agreement struck in 2000 under which Amazon handled online sales for the retailer. The toy seller had sought US$200 million in damages, claiming Amazon had violated the terms of the deal by allowing others to sell toys through its site."

"Amazon had countersued, saying the toy retailer had left Amazon without sufficient inventory to fill orders."

"Other retailers also have weaned themselves from Amazon, including Circuit City, which cut ties last year after a four-year partnership that was seen lagging expectations throughout."

"Target, the discount retailer that has a third-party arrangement in place with Amazon for certain goods, including apparel, could expand its relationship with Amazon to include toy sales."

For more information, read this article from the www.ecommercetimes.com