LeWeb 3 Contestant In Profile: ZYB

Today we profile another startup contestant slated to present its business plan at the LeWeb 3 competition tomorrow. It?s called ZYB, and if I may say so myself, it appears at first glance to be almost completely useless. Or not. Honestly, I can?t decide.

ZYB, in a nutshell, is a Web-based contact storage service. According to the company?s homepage copy, ZYB ?stores your phone?s contacts, calendar and messages online and connects you with people you know.? Which, in my view, is a slightly indefinite concept. I mean, what exactly is its purpose? You?ve got your information stored on your phone. There?s something that?s already doing what you want done. Why have something else do exactly the same thing?

Really the only need I can imagine ZYB fulfilling is backup. Which I do recognize is stipulated as part of the package in the company?s ?About? page. But why then purport ZYB to be something additionally beneficial?

Yes, you may indeed use the service to store contact information. But why use it to connect with those in one?s virtual address book? Surely the owners of the data uploaded to the site have their chosen means of communication; namely, their phones, email, IM, social networking utilities, etc. And if that?s true, it appears rather redundant for ZYB to play a duplicate role, no?

Confused? You're not alone. Yet, I must say, if you spend a sizable moment and try to connect the dots, ZYB as a whole starts to look a semi-reasonable attempt at something. That something being a new social framework. Frankly. I wouldn?t be very much surprised if ZYB established itself a sort of niche as a second- or third-tier social network, built upon the assumption ? and a somewhat reasonable one ? that individuals? lives revolve around their mobile phones, and so why not offer an easy way to ?sync up? to the Web, and more or less move along from there?

That what I take from a 5-minute glance at ZYB, anyhow. I suppose the difficulty with comprehending the general motive for the service is its indeterminate position. Is it a backup utility? Is it a social network? Is it both?

Here?s an idea. Clarify!