The current economic crisis is causing some people to press the reset button a little too soon. I've just sat through some conversations where traditionalists have argued that the downturn will mean a return to "core business values". That may be true for some sectors, but I don't think people are going to abandon many of the new widgets available for mobile phones (and desktops) in favour of a return to ringtones. In this case the way back in broken.

Paris based Netvibes turns out to be one of the best places to go to find handy applications, especially if you don't have an iPhone and want to find what's on offer for other devices. At LeWeb08, I was curious to find Netvibes with a stand for the second year in a row.

Lets say I have come up with a handy application which, when launched on a mobile, would allow me to access a reference library of wine reviews. If the phone had a barcode reader, it would grab the details and come back to me with the "vay ner chuk"rating just before I part with my cash. Gary is careful to point out on winelibrary.tv that wine is very personal, but nonetheless I am interested to hear what others think about what's sitting on the shelf of my local off-licence.

So having built a social web application for wine, how could Netvibes make sure the world gets to share the joy, both of enjoying good wine, but also the thrill of discovering a bargain? This short conversation may help to explain the problem they have solved.

After a recent period of instability (due to a technical problem with a load balancer), Netvibes is more vibrant than ever before.