Vodafone Buys Mobile Phone Social Network ZYB For $50 Million

8:40 AM - May 16, 2008 - By Bestofmedia Team - Source : Tom's Guide

Vodafone has bought the mobile social networking service ZYB for €31.5 million ($50 million) in a move that will see the Danish company become a part of Vodafone’s Internet Services Division.

The Danish company started up in 2005 with investment of €3 million and offered a free online storage space for users to back up their mobile phone contacts. ZYB later developed into a social networking site when the company realised the potential of having all of a users mobile phone contacts stored in the same database: Users could, if they chose, link up to one another by seeing who else has the same contacts in their database.

ZYB also offers other services such as storing messages, calendar information, and a phonebook to launch later in the year that will display the real-time location of your friends and the time zone they’re currently in.

ZYB’s services, beyond the simple backing up of data, is to allow you to connect to other mobile phone users online and, increasingly, connect with them more easily on your phone using services such as the ZYB Phone Book.