Friday, June 10, 2011

1pengguna Boleh

Another RM1.4 million down the drain.

Even if the website was up and running without a glitch, it would serve as a mere toy for the first few months. No one is going to take it seriously for the longer term. For example, my shopping list includes, shower cream, shampoo, toothpaste, apples, orange juice and liquid detergent. There is NO WAY that all of the items mentioned will be cheaper at one place. So, I would have to key in all the items that I wanted and compute the overall price to see at which hypermarket or supermarket that I can get them for the lowest price. There are a few problems that arise from that.

1. How many of us make exact shopping lists before going shopping and adhere to it 100%. Sometimes we buy more, sometimes we buy less. That changes the overall price paid.

2. OK, so we find out from the price checker that we can save about RM2-3 at a particular hypermarket. What if that hypermarket is 5 km further from my house compared with a competing outlet? Assuming the cost per km for driving to that hypermarket is RM0.20, the drive to and from that place would cost an additional RM2.00, reducing my cost savings from using 1pengguna to almost zilch.

3. What about the 15-20 minutes taken to key in all the goodies that I intend to get? Assuming my time costs about RM20 per hour (low estimate), 15 minutes would cost about RM5.

4. The worst part about the 1pengguna website was that you can only compare outlets of the SAME type. This means that you can compare Jusco with only... Jusco, because it is classified as a supermarket. You can't compare Jusco against Giant or Tesco because they are hypermarkets.

Still feel like using 1pengguna? Like I said, it is a short-term toy at best.

However, I see a way to salvage this failed project. Convert it to a 1antirasuah (anti-bribery) website. Allow registered users to input detailed accounts of occurrences of bribery issues in government departments, ranging from petty bribery to large-scale graft. Allow the users to key in the name of the department, name of the officer involved, the amount involved, service involved etc. We will then compare the "prices" of the "services" offered on a large scale to see how much it takes to get things done. See if that reduces corruption. I think that would actually save the people more money than this  useless 1pengguna website.

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