The popular free mobile synchronisation and backup service, ZYB, has been acquired by Vodafone and re-branded as Vodafone360.

In November last year, ZYB was replaced by a new and improved service called Vodafone 360. From that time, the ZYB website was closed for new registrations, and new signups are being directed to register with Vodafone 360 instead.

Last year, we reported that ZYB had suddenly cut off certain users without notification.

Vodafone360 claims to work “on 247 mobile networks globally and more than 400 mobile phones” and that “it’s available to everyone for free“, Nigeria is not on the list of supported countries. Actually, that shouldn’t be stranmge, as Vodafone does not have a presence in Nigeria anyway.

Again, a member of our team who had a ZYB account attempted to login but got an error that the username and email address do not exist in the database. Apparently, the account has been deleted.

Adieu, ZYB.

Back in April, I wrote a piece titled Backup and Synchronize Your Contacts, Pictures, SMS and Calendar with ZYB.

Unfortunately, Zyb has left many subscribers with a bad taste in their mouths. Here is the story.

I needed to synchronise my contacts to a device I was testing, so I logged into my Zyb account two days ago to have the Zyb sync settings sent to the phone by SMS.

The first thing I noticed on logging in was that my account was reading, “Set location”, though I had registered with my full details, including selecting Nigeria as my country way back.

When I clicked through to set my location, presto! – instead of the extensive list of over 100 countries that had been there for years, I met a very concise list of a handful of countries. The majority of countries, who had been on the list before, had been cut-off.

The bad part is that I never got a notification from Zyb that they were pruning their service. Yet, Zyb regularly sent reminders that I haven’t synced my contacts, so it is clear that they have the capacity to notify users of a change of this magnitude. Perhaps they did send the notification, but it got lost in transit?

Anyway, I have suddenly discovered that I have been cut off. So, here I am with 492 contacts in my Zyb account, and I cannot synchronise them with any device at all.

This is NOT the way to provide service. A thumbs-down to Zyb on this one. Oh, yes; and a goodbye too.

If you change phones a lot for any reason, you must be familiar with the problem of transferring your contacts.

One way to solve that problem is to regularly backup your files. But this does not have to be limited to just contacts. Other files, such as SMS, pictures and calendar entries, can be backed up too.

If you have a PC, you can backup your phone via whatever PC Suite the manufacturer supports. If not, an online backup service is a viable alternative.

ZYB is an online sysstem that backs up all the contact information on your phone to the internet. ZYB automatically updates your contacts, on the phone and internet, whenever you or your friends change or add information. This basic functionality is free.

Basically, you need a GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA connection, and you can backup and restore your files anywhere, anytime as long as you are within network coverage.

You can also backup your contacts by sending SMS to a predefined number. Picture backups can be done via MMS as well.

The advantage of thee online sservice is that you are not tied to doing backups and restores from just one location (wherever your PC happens to be).

In addition to backing up contacts, ZYB also backs up your calendar entries. You can also backup your SMS, pictures and videos for a small subscription.

In addition, ZYB shows you your frieends’ Social updates from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Hyves and blogs.

Sounds like something you could use? Then head over to ZYB.COM to signup free and Keep your phone in sync.