Services Tailor Apps For Small Businesses

WALL STREET JOURNAL — Barbara Heinrich says she isn't computer-savvy, but last month the owner of Local Motion, a clothing boutique in Minneapolis, went online and built her own mobile-phone application. It was worth a try, she figured, considering how cheap and easy it was to do and how addicted to iPhone apps young people like her daughter were. It also dovetailed with other online marketing efforts -- her Web site and e-mail blasts -- aimed at bringing regular customers, collected over 25 years, back to the shop. So she built a free app to display her hours, location and pictures of new arrivals using BuildAnApp, a Web site from Mobile On Services Inc., of Minneapolis, and submitted it to Apple for inclusion in its App Store.