Large sites like Twitter and Facebook before it tend to grow in step-like patterns, with bursts of growth followed by periods of flatness during which the site absorbs its new users and adapts to their needs.

Quoted from Nearly 75 Million People Visited Twitter’s Site In January (comScore)

Knock three times

A notification email works like an alert to someone when something has been done. The next time you have implemented a notification email to your system, you’d probably want to read this:

1) For important action only such as payment received, renewal reminder, etc

2) Keep it short. Since this is repetitive, readers will take snap than reading through

3) If the occurrence of an action is high in a day, consider stop sending notification

4) Send out from noreply@xxxx.com. You don’t expect replies anyhow.

5) For extremely urgent case, add SMS features. After all, it is about alert.

From advertising in mudah.com.my, I contact a person named Luca Mariaci through web contact template for her Mercedes Benz E240. I ask her to reply me to my email. A day later, she email me, and she explain that she wanna sell her husband’s car which bought from Malaysia when her husband working in Malaysia. Now, her husband is working in UK, and she is staying at her hometown in Italy. The car is in Italy, and she emails me all the cars picture.

After that, she try to convince me by saying that the car have all the documentation of JPJ (road transport department document) and PUSPAKOM certificate (standard procedure for change of owner in Malaysia : computerized vehicle check up). I’m surprised that A WOMAN in Italy can know deeply about all the procedure to sell cars in Malaysia. wow.. She says if I’m interested, we can begin the transaction using escrow services for safety reason. I don’t feels good, so i try to trace Luca Mariaci’s email but fail because she’s using gmail account. I fail to get her location so, in my next email, i asked her to check my company website (local website, frequently accessed by the Malaysian only) with reason maybe she can find something interesting there.

Luckily, she do open the web and later i can trace several access from outside, which is very unusual from my server logs:

72.30.79.26 United States California Sunnyvale Inktomi Corporation
81.90.1.163 Russian Federation – - Network For Infrastructure Of Netlline Ltd
38.99.13.116 United States California San Francisco Performance Systems International Inc

Then, she asked me my contact details, and after its given, she tell me that she will submit my name to the escrow company services. After that, less than 6 hours i get an email from ittoptran.com, telling me that a Merc Benz had been registered to send by air on my name. Now, i believe that this transaction is 95% fraud.

I do open the http://ittoptran.com, the web looks perfect just like a professional courier company. However, i fail to open http://www.ittoptran.com, only http://ittoptran.com can be accessed. Feeling something is wrong, i do check the name “ittoptran” and finally found that the name is “blacklisted” or “suspected” fraud. hehehe..

New Escrow Services in Malaysia

Fake Voice of Exxon Mobil Corp Still Tweeting

A recent case exemplifies what brand-jacking is and the inherent danger it presents: ExxonMobil was put on the defensive after a Twitter account surfaced acting as a voice for the oil and gas giant. The Twitter user, “Janet at ExxonMobil (ExxonMobilCorp)” used the popular — and public — short messaging service to address weighty issues facing ExxonMobil, from global warming to defenses of company reaction to the Exxon Valdez spill. At the time, Janet was an active voice, engaging users in dialogues, answering questions and even being picked up by industry bloggers as an example of a corporation taking an early step towards adopting a new technology.

The problem was “Janet” was not an employee at ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil had been brand-jacked. Exxon acted quickly to discuss the case with the media, but damage to the ExxonMobil brand had already been done: off-brand messages and opinions — completely out of the control of corporate stakeholders — were being picked up by a global community.

One of the reasons the false Exxon Mobil Twitter account was so problematic was that it followed other brands’ adoption of Twitter, like Southwest Airlines and Comcast, whose activities captured the attention of mainstream media, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Thus, it seemed reasonable that Janet at ExxonMobil was an actual voice of the company, rather than someone taking advantage of an industry trend that Exxon Mobil had overlooked.

Extracts from http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/21110.imc

The real identity of Janet of ExxonMobilCorp is revealed. The person DOES NOT represent Exxon Mobil Corporation. In other words, the person is a fake. Read more here.

Google’s Web Design Company

If Google has created the most amazing website, why do they not start their own web design business?

When we work for someone, we get paid and at the same time we get the chance to acquire new skills. For example, a web designer creates an online store for someone and gets paid for the time spent and the quality of work. Such a relationship provides a very good platform for someone to learn.

The owner of the online store will not share the revenue with you. Every day, value is built into the project and this has nothing to do with you (The most you get is a portfolio). The web designer goes project by project, having a bad time during year-end when all companies have finished their budget.

This does not only happen to individuals, but businesses as well. Most successful companies change their business direction so as to have recurring sales rather than one-off profit. All these involve applying their skills in different ways.

Web designers venture into their own online business; contractors build their own housing project; programmers develop their own software for sale. Remember, the moment you start, you are accumulating your value somewhere. When you wake up tomorrow, it is still with you, though you have much more to worry about, such as operations and marketing.

If you were Google now, would you want to start own web design business?

Confession #2: Web developers do not tell you that most online business they have created last no more than a year!

How much is eBay?

News like YouTube sold for 1.6 billion USD to Google, eBay acquired Skype for 2.6 billion often get all of us so excited and usually make us start to wonder about how we too can start something similar. Incidentally, Air Asia with their online booking system, grew their flight business continuously in the last 5 years.

Air Asia outsourced their booking engine to a third party solution provider, but we’ve never heard Larry of Google or Steve Chen of YouTube engaged similar strategy to develop the online business for them. Instead, their solution is “home-brewed”.

This is because Air Asia’s core business is to provide affordable flight (Everyone Can Fly!) and the booking engine is just a medium for the public to book their tickets. No matter how well they design the entire booking system, it is more important to have a well managed airline system. Outsourcing the ticket booking system can allow Tony to concentrate more on the airline business itself.

So, let’s look at a scenario here where Ah Beng wants to build a second eBay.

He proposed to us that he wants to build a platform like eBay and then asked us for a full-fledge proposal of the entire system. These people either do not understand what it cost to build a successful online business and instead of them providing us the specifications, they are asking us to do it for them. It’s like asking the architect to find me a good location for my next restaurant.

You might ask then, what kind of services we provide, since we don’t help people build their second eBay?

After Ah Beng realized how a second ebay wouldn’t work as he’d planned, he then started his own restaurant business in Klang Valley. Business grew by leaps and bounds. Reservations of table through the receptionist became a bottleneck with the increment of business volume. He then came to us again after realizing how an online reservation system can help him clear the bottleneck and at the same time how he can use the online medium to expand his market reach.

After outsourcing his entire online presence to us, Ah Beng can then continue to concentrate on his restaurant business, where his expertise lies in. From this experience, Ah Beng realized that a successful online strategy is very much like a good restaurant, where the owner must himself understand how the restaurant business works

Confession #3: Web developers do not like to present a mock-up if given the choice.

Website Mockup

We had a humble beginning when we just started our web design business 6 years ago. Some customers asked for mockup before project confirmation.

Yes, you have a test drive before you buy a car, some sample to test before you order something. But this should never happen to a web design project.

What is a mockup? Mockup is the draft design of the website that you are going to produce later. Customer feel that by looking at the mockup, they can judge how well is a web design company, and then only to confirm.

There is a cost to develop a mockup. Mockup is a result of detail study of customer’s service and products, understand how to present the website and to make it interesting. It is part of the development, and there is cost associated with it.

My personal experience of dealing with customers who wish to have a mock up…

99.99% you don’t get the deal, see :)

Confession #4: Web developers are suffering, business is bad!

Blog Kills Web Developers

WordPress is a free publishing platform. It will turn 5 years soon and you will be amazing of how many people are using it now, especially as Blog. Blog works so well for everyone to share personal journal on the web. You can sign up one for free and start blogging almost instantly!

Yes, Blog is free! Free is not good – at least for businesses. That is why, blogging spread like fire among individual users than businesses. It has becoming a New Marketing way for most businesses. Old corporate managers do not want to miss this new marketing opportunity, ended up setting one official corporate website together with an official Blog.

It was never easy to tell my customers that Blog and corporate website are the same. Fancy design still remains as the top-most-wanted feature for most of my customer. It was designed as like to please just the corporate website owner than people visiting it. Or, it may be the idea of web developer to push for beautiful layout, which in most case, the same result can be delivered by a page simple as Google main page.

WordPress has done so well in keeping the design separated from the content. It works like the theme in you Nokia Phone. You can choose to change the look and feel of your screen without entering all your contact in your address book again. This sounds simple but challenge is everyone has to adapt to a single format (post title, post slug, categories) of content, yet work in any page!

We have changed the look and feel of our corporate website several times, without worrying about rebuilding the content. But, you will be surprised with number of corporate websites still built with both content and design combined and ready to have them built from scratch again in their next revamp.

Bloggers are paving the way for the change of corporate website. They take the risk of change, trying up how the new format of content definition should work. Bloggers do not have website in the past. Creating a Blog is not a revamp to them, but something new.

But, for a company with already spending so much in the past in their website, it is hard for them to make the change. They choose not to make immediate decision. They are still on the look-and-see state, but will eventually follow!

There are three things happening now,

1. Businesses are starting to understand the importance of the goal of creating a website. A goal must be measurable, it can be number of order, number of people downloading your location map, number of support email received, except branding :)

2. The platform of Blog, such as WordPress, after a long 5 years of development are now ready to prove that the technology is mature yet simple to user now.

3. All of us are no longer limiting to our own job of scope. My partner just login to our corporate website edited one of a page posted months ago and approved some comments. In that 5 minutes works, he turned himself into editor, proof reader, comment moderator, etc. The rules changed. You are taking over works of airline booking agent because you know it can be done online, faster and cheaper.

Business will soon no longer need a web developer!

Confession #5: Web design itself is a wrong business model

Classified Companies

I was talking to my friend who worked in a classified company. His company is into producing an inches thick printed classified and distributed free to businesses. The revenue model is simple, to get more companies to advertise, the better. You can choose from point form listing to full-page color advertisement, as long as you can pay for it.

We both agreed that these industries won’t last long. My friend estimating it would last for another 10 years and will start to go down. Why?

1. Customers are getting smarter now. See, you can’t pay Google for a clean high listing, but you can do it in Classified. Google use several method to find out the most useful and popular website and list them high, in a more technical term, PageRank. Yet, classified companies spent more time to recruit more sales rep to sell more ads than focusing in improving their Classified.

2. It wasn’t handy. Printed classified is thick and heavy. It requires you to go through the whole Klang Valley to find one Plumber who is near your house. Search engines solved this problem, presenting you with a weight-less solution, as long as you are connected. You get information you need, most targeted and updated.

3. There are too many Medias now. Google will not be as successful if they start their company as one that sell and allow people to subscribe to their pay per click model. See, you need a story, a story that is truly benefiting your visitors.

At least there are few things classified companies can do to improve this

Colored and box listing are free for those who deserve it, those with lot of good testimonials, those offering responsible customer support service. Companies who advertised should somehow find a way to prove there are qualified for a listing of their rank. In fact, all listing should be free!

Then, how to keep this classified company survive if not selling advertisement? I don’t know actually, it can be many ways. Think about how to make your product useful to your customers and the readers of the Classified. Who knows, one day, the revenue could be from the selling of the Classified? Subscription fee? Adsense?

If you’re sure what will happen in the 10 years time, why not change today? Afraid of short-term pains?

Confession #6: Web developers are fighting back… :)

Long Way Home of a Web Developer

Looking back – 10 years, from one project to another, we have completed countless project for our customers, big and small. I’m glad we did. Through I found them to certain extend becoming noise, but noise is good.

We were once occupied by web design projects. We spent most of our time solving problems for our customers. It keeps us really busy. To cope with it, we get more staff. And when we realize we have more mouth to feed every month, we struggle to get more projects. This can be done only if your team never fall sick, your sales persons close deal timely, your designer produce the same good quality on every project, you have same less-fussy customers every time…

While your customers happily passing all the noises to you in their so-called outsource process, you are scratching your head to manage unnecessary noise over and over. You engage more staff than automating the process, you use your time to help your customers grow than your own.

Not only this, you find the red ocean spreading across in front of you. Web design firms fighting each other from getting drown. You try to find out why customers pay little on their website, when you think you should deserve more? You’re no longer satisfied been paid of your time spent, instead of values created.

Never underestimate your values.

We can create wonders if we start something today, together.

Confession #7: Web developers has no marketing budget

Brand to Blame!

I’ve always wanted to ask a brand consultant how are they going to brand a company to- offering good services, making their customers feel good…

Branding is modern-day fortune telling.

They talk to people who believe in them only. I was never approached by a street fortune teller because I don’t look like their customer. Perhaps, I looked like those who is going to throw them a question of why not they spend more time predicting their own future (to be more specific, Toto’s winning numbers).

Fortune teller must always make sure they look good, at least from outside. Since their work is all about prediction, telling everyone they have the most accurate prediction give them more creditability- but what is prediction creditably for? The most I can say is, that particular fortune teller is luckier is his wild guess!

Well, many branding companies carry big names. That big name is only to make them look good and cost you more. The big name does not help you to make what you are selling taste better, or your customers to feel better.

Do not worry, like most fortune tellers, they are not going to cause anything bad to your business. See, you won’t die now even if a fortune teller told you so (but I’m sure they don’t want you to die and have one less customer).

But the real problem when you have a brand consultant with a successful business! Who knows, the credits go to branding? Having stay alive for one extra day, has nothing to do with a fortune teller, right?

Enjoy reading

‘如有雷同，实属巧合’

Pin

All plan is good! But, good plan can failed too, or turn out good!

Planning, execution and evaluating results – It’s a cycle!

Some cycle is short,
1. Plan to have 4-day work week
2. Announcement made and take effect immediately
3. Job performance increase / or decrease

Others are long,
1. Take one month to discuss and another month to approve
2. Try with alternate 4-day work week and finally made official
3. Job performance increase / or decrease

No, they don’t matter, either it’s short or long cycle

But it is the MORE CYCLES you go through, the better.

Selling newspaper at the entrance?
Selling drinks at the exit?

The investors know how to monetize from what they are good at. For Larry, probably he will put up advertisement space for sell on the building. For Bill Gates, he probably put Bing Search Engine kiosk at the sortie?

What would you do?

Sinchew-i's contact us form

Perhaps, it is easier to look at Sinchew’s problem this way,

Bad service triggers complaints
Good products triggers good review letters
Unclear navigation in the website triggers questions
Commitment triggers potential collaboration request
…

Solving a problem and you will not have to answer the same request forever. Including an updated FAQ before the enquiry form and many will be happy to find an answers than using the form.

What is left? Suggestion, improvement, sales enquiries, etc

You will be more than happy to listen to it. You want more, than finding a way to reduce them. Each of them could potentially become a successful conversion.

I have talked to a friend yesterday. She is doing her PHD on an interesting topic about if SME is doing their business planning or not? SME owner has too much noise and they usually find themselves no time to plan. Same to the enquiry form, too busy answering the questions makes the person-in-charge less time to think how to solve it. They choose to bear with it, the quick way.

Change!

You can outsource it to someone, who has the experience in managing AdSense, and able to combile many different AdSense under one root. He can pass through the threshold every month and get your paycheck ready than leaving it with Google and virtually own it.

2. No equal shares in a partnership. A lot of startups with two founders choose to remain in 50/50 share structure from the RM2-company, hmm… time to chance.

3. Share allocation, how and why? It is too easy to give by mouth than words. Put it to agreement, both side should have an understanding of what to receive and what to give. If one side not delivering, the another side should have a reverse plan, discussed and written down.

4. Often, one party was challenged because the said agreement was never done. In judge terms, it is fine- as long as you have the proof of conduct to show your involvement. Email backup and other important archieve can be of useful sometimes.

5. Money, money, money. Define a process for how to deal with money in your company. For example, what is the procedure of making a payment by check? Many startup mix up personal & business money together, which is definitely not a good practise. You will take even longer time to sort this out when your company grows later.

A new domain name was registered to resume their business operation, but it is tedious for sure. Despite the police report, my friend tried everything but in vain, for a month! They wrote to both original and new Registars, as well as the domain name reseller in Malaysia – but no luck!

The domain name was originally registered with Tucows, 4 years ago, through their reseller ACME Commerce in Malaysia. The domain theft transferred the domain name to a new registrar called Name.com. This was done anonymously.

True to say, many Registrar take no action on such issues. To them, it was a legal transfer. The dispute is between the staff and the company, none of their business. Tucows requested a so called International court order, a document equivalent to – we are not going to do anything. ACME, in this case – the billing party, failed to do anything too.

Many domain name owners do not bother to update their domain name registration information, or WHOIS record. It is too late until your domain name was transferred and only you find out your contact information is not updated. Domain name reseller or registrar never bother to inform client on keeping the up-to-date WHOIS record too.

Run a WHOIS check, make sure Registrant and Administrator information shows the owner of the business, not any Technical staff or someone who provide the domain name registration. Make sure it is your email got listed, than any other email which you do not have access. Remember, any changes or transfer to the domain name triggers email notification, and you will be the first one to know, to take immediate action.

The Story Continues – Retrieving the Domain Name!

I wrote an email to Tucows, no reply. My second email to Name.com was replied within a day who promise to look into this matter. This was great! Here comes, the proof of ownership of a domain name. While WHOIS shows the ownership of the domain name in text, but not in action. Yes, same thing to contract. The conduct of a business utilizing the domain name in their brochure, namecard, emails – all shows a conduct of the usage of the domain name. My friend’s company pay for the renewal yearly, another solid proof!

With all document compiled and emailed to Name.com, we are expecting to retrieve the domain name back soon! :)

Updates: The case was finally resolved. The ownership was returned to my client via a account transfer done by Name.com. All thanks to the prompt action taken by Name.com and the initiative to liaise between the parties.

It’s been a year where a4trip.com realize that best travel experience is without a guide, a year where our average response time is more important than anything else. And finally, on a personal note, I wish to complete my book, talk to even more entrepreneurs and understand the world better!

Anything to share?

Why not stick to pbebank.com only?

Sometimes, options may not be a good thing :)

Be the first doesn’t make you the best!

Look at YouTube, Gmail, Facebook and Google, I won’t say that they are something new, but they stay focus and create the best user useful website/content for their visitors. Well, what happen to Hotmail, Friendster and Yahoo?

Link A, B and C can be down for many reasons including Internet Connection problem, delaying, etc. It creates real panic when any of them is down, and it was happening to my sister last two days. She was booking a flight ticket online through KLM Royal Dutch airlines…

A great front-end but lack of info when thing goes wrong

1. She tried many different cards and frustrated over the re-entering of booking information.

2. She got a confirmation finally, but another email later that said application not confirmed.

3. She called KLM and was asked to check with Credit Card company and both sides are telling different stories in the end.

Link A or B is down. Apparently, KLM didn’t receive the sufficient credit request. So the transaction is floating. KLM system is not full proof! No friendly notes / instruction to guide panic customers when link A, B or C is down.

How technopreneurs achieve their goal?

“Your dream is to travel the world. To make this happen, you think you need some money. You got a job and you work very hard to earn enough money…”

“You started an online business. It might takes you two years to make the project self sustaining. To cover the cost, you start looking for other income…”

What is your goal? If you have one, are you working on the right direction? Or, you are busy, but it seems never getting you any closer to your goal. If you are starting your own business now and struggling to make ends meet.. Think about this:

Goal: There are always ways to achieve your goal without any cost.

Cost: Reduce cost is easier than increasing income.

Income: Busy looking for income distracts goal

What’s your long term goal? Post it here.

In a Contact Us form context, it is one way. You will make sure everything you typed are correct, double read before you send out the request. The instruction is clearer and job get done more easily.

My first proposal was rejected immediately after it was presented to a VC back in year 2002. In the past, we never stop looking for investor. Ask yourself, if you are given USD100,000 the same time as when Google’s founder received their first fund- are you able to come out with another Google?

Securing a funding has nothing to do in getting your business model and system right. I see those Restaurants near my office open-close and changed hand every 6-12 months. I will not agree if this is because of not enough renovation or marketing budget. Surprisingly, I found heavy-renovated shops closed faster than those without.

How to start an online business without funding? You might already have a company which is offering some services, or working full time and earning a salary, or working on a part-time project or freelance job… If you’re struggling every month to make ends meet, read this:

1. It is easier to save cost than increasing the revenue.
2. Reduce number of revenue sources and keep those without noise.
3. It’s never impossible to turn active income to passive.

I have a story to share:

You are looking for water in a desert. Suddenly, there are two people coming to you. One of them is giving you a glass of water, while another one is telling you the way to find the river which is far far far away from here. You drink the water and start setting your way to find the river. Just when you start feeling thirsty again, one of them appear in front of you and offer you another glass of water. This happen again and again, and at last…

You decided to stop searching for the river. Instead, you start to plan of how to ask for a Coke than water.

What if that person never appear again with water? I suppose the river can offer unlimited water but why it doesn’t sound attractive again? This is the dangerous part when you have set a long term goal but is too carried away by the short term benefit which shouldn’t be seen as revenue.

Branding is modern-day fortune telling.

They talk to people who believe in them only. I was never approached by a street fortune teller because I doesn’t look like their customer. Perhaps, I looked like those who is going to throw them a question of why not they spend more time predicting their own future (to be more specific, Toto’s winning numbers).

Fortune teller must always make sure they look good, at least from outside. Since their work is all about prediction, telling everyone they have the most accurate prediction give them more creditibility- but what is prediction creditably for? The most I can say is, that particular fortune teller is luckier is his wild guess!

Well, many branding companies carry big names. That big name is only to make them look good and cost you more. The big name does not help you to make what you are selling taste better, or your customers to feel better.

Do not worry, like most fortune tellers, they are not going to cause anything bad to your business. See, you won’t die now even if a fortune teller told you so (but I’m sure they don’t want you to die and have one less customer).

But the real problem when you have a brand consultant with a successful business! Who knows, the credits go to branding? Having stay alive for one extra day, has nothing to do with a fortune teller, right?

Yes, comes the standard story…

Several web agencies were invited to present a mockup. The best one was chosen. A brand new website was launched after several months, Old marketing managers were happy about it, at very least!

The problem of many businesses is they don’t think big enough! Perhaps, they have tried to think out of box, but the box is just too small.

How far can a cruise operator’s website go if it can only allow booking of their own tour package? What is the difference when it was compared to a cruise booking website that allow visitors to book tour package of any cruise operator?

I have recently attended their private launch of the new Maybank2U 2.0 website. If only Maybank2U knows not all users are techy, and their new website doesn’t seem to address to this problem at all!

A common problem for many System Interface Designers is, they believe everyone knows hitting Ctrl+V is Paste, and no one will choose the Paste function from File menu.

The old Maybank website

Look at the amount of information, links and pictures in this page. Yes, this is catchy in a bad way- distracting users’ attention on important notice and security alert. Choice is not good, in this case.

This might easily help everyone (Including Mr. Ctrl+V and Mr. File) to fight phishing. This cost less to develop, no consultancy fee to pay (I’m happy to share), and most importantly, to convince more people to use Maybank2U!

Think about this classic Chicken and Egg question. Visitors to Youtube are looking for video clips uploaded by other visitors. Which come first, visitors or video clips?

Many online business owner do not want to touch this. It is no doubt a tough questions to answer, yet so important that one should be aware of this and has a plan!

They appear like a dream project to me. They are different from conventional business which involved only selling of services of products. I doubt dream project is unplanned (like many stories you have heard from those successful Web 2.0 owners).

Plan it now!

34 pages A4 size (Free)
60 pages, 4.25″ x 6.88″, perfect binding (USD8.23)

Post a Review if you like this guide

Just look at my earlier post on Jo-jo’s Challenge. We have collected about 33 feedbacks for just one form, extracted from an online hotel booking website.

This is the current website of Maybank2U. The Maybank2U team done a great work to build this from scracth. It is not easy, especially when you’re dealing with large number of users and important data. The decision to revamp come at the right time. If the old website was built to attract more visitors (during those days when it was new), the revamped version should have focused in the conversion rate or meeting goals. In short, to increase Maybank’s revenue and to decrease Maybank’s operating cost!

I managed to take this picture showing some important practices during the presentation. Too bad, the pages in the new website are still fighting for space :)

Allow me to quickly go through some of my humble and nothing-new feedbacks. I would love to jump to the end of the post which I am going to propose and touch the painful part of the change – The Fundamental!

Don’t be surprised, many visitors can not tell the difference between the two pictures in quick.

I couldn’t find the login box in the main page like what we have in Paypal? A touching personalization can be redundant. Quick math, if you will to login 100 times to Maybank2U in your lifetime, that means the New User link will appear 99 times to you unused. Not just that, you have just forced someone to make 99 decisions of not clicking on that particular link. Don’t make a choice.

Most often, user experience has a lot to do with the Contact us form. Imagine, it serves as the best time and place where you can turn someone’s experience of using your website better. They can be your best friend who promote the website for you, not of fancy technology but some little nice experience. A good form receives fewer support request, saving operational cost greatly. I have reviewed the Contact us form of Alliance Bank in the past, check it out. An example of Contact us form in good use.

Sign up form – one of the most important page where visitors are converted into Maybank2U users. Yet, too many options, and I wonder why the online method should not be given priority as like the big button in WordPress. Yet, this is not much different from the first version. This explains why 1,500 pages are way too difficult to focus your bullet (budget and time) on. Probably that answer to Yowchuan’s question on how much is the cost of revamp during the preview launch today.

I would love to have location map if this is not too much of work :)

The Fundamental Feedback?

My Maybank2Me directs me to a secure page with big login button. There is a clear instruction to tell people how to ensure they are landed in the non-phishing page. I don’t have to choose if I am a new user, the system will do this dirty job for me. My online system reminds me if there is a recurring payment to make such as rental and the list go on…

The rest of information such as banking, credit card, lifestyles updates, promotions, sign up instructions and contact us form are separated from the online banking system.

Who knows, I could have one version for people like my dad? Lite, easy to use, and probably they could belong to the last group of users who will continue ‘supporting’ the physical banks :)

Keep it up, Maybank2U Team!

I must be kidding. Yes, I don’t have a Maybank2U account.

Some related posts I have written in the past. They have a lot to do with UI.

- Truly first come first serve system must be discriminative!
- Acmamall.com, more stones needed
- What’s system design to do with marketing?
- I Hate Big Pencil

You would probably get the same answer if you are asking someone before a car was invented. The Maybank2U website has about 1 million active users now. This is the best real data one can have when come to revamping a website. You have all the answers, from percentage of people who never change their password, to average amount of transaction in details.

I was skeptical especially when there are too much user involvement during the user experience studies. Various test are included but this can eventually turn out to be a faster horse. Yes, everyone fancy about uploading and sharing videos, but no one will tell the founder of YouTube to build it that way.

When asked about the estimation of the increase of conversion after the revamp, I was told by Shareza that they are expecting the current active users to grow from 1 million to 1.5 millions in three months. In layman terms, this means an additional 500 thousands users will become active with the new design, if number of visitors remains the same (or 50% increase of visitors while conversion rate remains).

Few groups of potential active users come into my mind, including my dad who is computer illiterate, locals who speak just Bahasa, Mandarin or Tamil, international users who are not speaking English, my brother-in-law who want everything from font-size to input box big… Not to mention myself who just want to get my transaction done with shortest possible click, doesn’t really care if it is PBEOnline or Mayban2U.

The new revamp reduces number of pages from 3,000 to 1,500, which is still way too much to digest. Why not 10 or 20 pages? To me, Google search engines has only 2 pages: main page and search result page. It is about getting things done.

Together with Maybank2U team and their partners, they are some famous bloggers who are invited to try out the system. As for two of us, probably thanks to Yowchuan’s post on Maybank downtime earlier.

I was thinking that is would be some serious user experience testing there but it turns out to be too-good food and goodies bag which I’m less interested :)

One good thing about inviting bloggers are, you get your press releases out faster than any other conventional media:

snsBlog: Maybank2U 2.0 Preview
RedesignMalaysia: Exclusive Maybank2u 2.0 Preview
Earnestly Speaking: The new M2U: Impressions

Just look at Stemlife & Stemlife Blog or Malaysia Airlines and its Malaysia Airlines Blog, this growing trend means you will see more business owner adding Blog to their main menu in the website.

Google treat everyone as personal. That is why you are not asked to enter your company information. See, one can work for more than one company, or even own a few companies. How many times you are asked to answer your income range or your age or your area of interest in those drop down forms? It is, in another words of saying – your age and income will never change. Or, what is the point of asking?

Well, behind business Blog, I’m sure you can find someone, or a group of people who is managing it. They are real people and the business Blog is actually personal to them, so as the official website :)

You’ve chosen the off-the-beaten path. You’ve thousand of decisions to make from now on, from choosing a name for your Blog, to how to generate your first quotation. How important is your namecard design and is it worth to spend your bullet banging on billboard? How about business model and sustaining your business in the coming days…

Yes, my partner Yowchuan and I, wish to have a cuppa with you, sit down and listen to you. The reason for us to do so, because we believe through sharing, we learn – we learn from you too!