I was lucky enough to take part in a Vodafone blogger breakfast briefing (try saying that five times over) this week. In a very respectable move, the team decided to preview the latest developments to recently purchased ZYB, as well as a new developer-focused ‘Widget Zone’ – which will support the creation of new mobile widgets.

Zyb (a mobile phone back-up and interactive phonebook service) has gone through a bit of an overhaul since its induction into the Vodafone family, and has integrated email and SMS into its offering. This means that you can now send a message via either channel to another Zyb user free of charge.

They’ve also tightened up the service, fixed some of the duplication bugs, and improved the usability by adding a personalised toolbar, location-update feature & a better contacts overview.

I had actually deleted my Zyb account a few months ago, as I’d had trouble with my privacy settings. There was a definite divide at the table between the guys, who’d found duplication of contacts a problem, and the girls –for whom privacy was a far bigger issue. The option to hide your profile had always existed, but even when I’d chosen the highest settings, my Zyb profile (plus all of my details) was still showing up as the first listing on a Google search of my name.

Needless to say, they’ve fixed this. I actually re-signed up and synced during the session itself. It took me maybe 10 minutes, and voila – my profile now remains completely out of sight.

Vodafone is also launching an integration for Zyb with the iPhone and Blackberry at some point in January. I was pleased we were able to play with these immediately on the handsets and have to say - I’m not a fan of touch screen phones - but even I liked the iPhone one.  It just worked.

One the smartest new features is the ability to sign up to Zyb direct from your phone. For a mobile-centric service, this makes complete sense. Plus, it will allow Vodafone to capitalisAe on the immediacy of people showing the service to their friends.

As for Widget zone, this will sit within Betavine. From February next year, it will allow developers to publish widgets they’ve created via the Widget Manager, subject of course to guidelines for appropriate content.

The ‘Widget Manager’ has been built primarily on Opera for the S60 platform, and will soon be accessible on the Vodafone live! portal from Germany, Italy, South Africa, Spain and the UK.

If you’ve an S60 handset, you’ll be able to download the Widget Manager and play with around 50 pre-loaded widgets – as well as get creative with your own.