Clovelly flooding damages homes

 

The flooding followed an hour of heavy rain

Heavy rain has caused flash floods in a Devon coastal village, damaging homes and pulling up cobbles in the street.

Villagers in Clovelly said about 2in of rain had fallen in an hour earlier.
The worst of the flooding was said to be in the main part of the village - a popular tourist destination - where one villager described the scene as a "brown river".
Devon and Somerset fire service was expected to be in the village late into the evening.
Gary Hanger, who lives in Clovelly, said: "People who have lived here all their lives, 50 years or more, have never seen anything like this.
"It's about 2in deep. It's just pouring into some houses, in one door and out the other."
Clean-up operation
Resident Sally Stevens said: "The water swept down the street and a few houses are flooded. The heavy rain has gone now, but the damage has been done."
Paula Cook, another resident in the privately owned village, said: "It was like the high street had been turned into a river. I have never seen anything like it."
Residents and volunteers are expected to spend much of the night helping those whose properties have been damaged.
Bysha Beani, from Clovelly Lifeboat Station, said: "We have been making an effort along with everyone else in Clovelly to help those most in need.
"The floodwater has caused a lot of damage, mostly to people's homes, and it seems the whole village is trying to do what it can to clean up."
The fishing village is traffic-free and popular with tourists for its tranquillity and its donkeys, which traditionally carry goods up the hill in the centre.

Resident Ellie Jarvis said the "street was like a river"
Clovelly has been privately owned by the same family since 1738. About 1,600 people live in the village and Clovelly Bay.
Other parts of Devon have also been affected by the heavy rain.
The A39 at Parracombe in Devon was shut both ways in the late afternoon due to flooding at Broadoak Hill.
Low-lying parts of Tiverton have been flooded, with the river Lowman bursting its banks.
Kevin Martin, who runs the Inn on the Green pub, said: "We can't open the front door at all. People are having to come in around the back."
The county council said the A388 outside Southcott Garage, Holsworthy, had flooded.
The A3072 between Bude in north Cornwall and Holsworthy was blocked in places.
David Quance, who lives at Sutcombe Mill, between Holsworthy and Bradworthy, said: "The water has come over a wall our neighbour had built.
"It's coming out of the entrance to their drive at tremendous force."

Malala Yousafzai: Shot Pakistan girl moves hospitals

 

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool reports from Malala's school in Pakistan, where he says students have been left "traumatised"
 
A 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by Taliban gunmen has been transferred to a new military hospital with better facilities.

Malala Yousafzai, in critical condition two days after being attacked in the north-western Swat Valley, arrived by helicopter in Rawalpindi from Peshawar.
The Taliban, who accuse the young activist of "promoting secularism", have said they will target her again.
There have been widespread protests in Pakistan against the shooting.
Malala Yousafzai was being treated in an intensive care unit in Peshawar before doctors decided to move her to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology critical care unit in Rawalpindi.
One of the medical team treating her said "neurologically she has significantly improved" but that the "coming days... are very critical".
Another doctor, Mumtaz Khan, told AFP news agency that she had a 70% chance of survival.
"Her condition is not yet out of danger despite improvement," Masood Kausar, the governor of the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was also quoted as saying.
'Barbaric mindset'
Pakistani officials have offered a 10m rupee ($105,000; £66,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of the attackers.
Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who visited Malala in hospital in Peshawar on Wednesday, said it was time to "stand up to fight the propagators of such barbaric mindset and their sympathisers".
Malala gained attention aged 11, when she started writing a diary for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban.
Using the pen-name Gul Makai, she wrote about suffering caused by militants who had taken control of the Swat Valley in 2007 and ordered girls' schools to close.
The Taliban were ousted from Swat in 2009, but her family said they had regularly received death threats.
They believed she would be safe among her own community, but on Tuesday, she was stopped as she returned home from school in Mingora, in north-western Swat, and shot in the head.

Malala Yousafzai spoke to the BBC in November 2011
Two other girls were injured.
Schools in the Swat Valley closed on Wednesday in protest at the attack, and schoolchildren in other parts of the country prayed for the girl's recovery.
Protests were held in Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan and in Malala's hometown of Mingora and in Lahore.
Those taking part praised the girl's bravery, while many condemned the attack as un-Islamic.
The attack has also drawn international condemnation.
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now the UN special envoy for global education, said Malala Yousafzai had become an "icon for courage and hope" for more than 30 million girls worldwide who are denied primary schooling.
Mr Brown said he had accepted an invitation from President Asif Ali Zardari to lead a delegation to Pakistan in November "to talk about how he can improve opportunities for children".

Amnesty: China forced evictions in 'significant rise'

 

The BBC's Martin Patience says some residents have reported being attacked by "thugs"
 
Forced evictions in China have risen significantly in recent years as local officials sell off land to property developers, Amnesty International says.

Many cases involve violence and harassment, in what the group called "a gross violation of human rights".
Pressure on local officials to meet economic goals and vested interests were behind the coercion, it said.
These evictions are a rumbling cause of social discontent and have led to protests across the country.
All land in China is effectively controlled by the state, and laws allow local governments to claim land for urban development projects.
Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty's senior director of research in Hong Kong, told the BBC that seizing and selling off land was how local authorities were paying back funds borrowed to finance stimulus packages during the economic downturn.
"The Chinese Communist Party promotes officials who deliver growth seemingly at any cost, and land development for roads, factories, residential complexes and so on is seen as the most direct path to visible results," she said.
Amnesty said the system was open to abuse and evictees often received little notice, no consultation and only a fraction of the value of their home in compensation.
Such cases have led to violent clashes between residents and police or private security guards on several occasions, the report said.
'Sudden and violent'
Amnesty interviewed lawyers, housing rights activists and academics, both in China and abroad, for its 85-page report entitled Standing Their Ground.
It looked at 40 cases of forced eviction from January 2009 to January 2012, nine of which it said culminated in deaths of people who opposed their evictions.
"The forced eviction of people from their homes and farmland without appropriate legal protection and safeguards has become a routine occurrence in China, and represents a gross violation of human rights obligations on an enormous scale," Amnesty said.
Many cases are "sudden and violent, sometimes resulting in death", harassment and in one instance, someone being buried alive.
Ms Duckworth said self-immolations caused by evictions were also on the rise. "We documented 41 reports of self-immolations from 2009 to the end of 2012," she said.
Protests in Wukan village resulted in the punishment of some local officials
Amnesty cited the example of Wukan village in Guangdong province in 2011, where residents demonstrated on the streets after a village negotiator protesting against local officials over a land grab died in police custody.
As a result of protests, two local officials were removed from their posts and others punished in 2012. The villagers also won the right to fresh local elections as part of the deal.
But "optimism might be premature" on the Wukan case, Amnesty said.
"To this day, there has been no independent investigation into [village negotiator] Xue Jinbo's death. The villagers still have not got any of their land back. And there are now reports that authorities have been harassing and spying on activists in Wukan."
The group called on China to put an immediate stop to all forced evictions and ensure safeguards were put in place in line with international law.
It also urged China to implement new regulations it adopted in 2011 providing for proper land compensation and outlawing the use of violence in these cases.
China does have laws in place to protect farmers and local residents, but these are often ignored at local level. Leaders in Beijing have acknowledged the problems and pledged to improve the situation.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in his report to the National People's Congress in March, said that problems related to land expropriation and housing demolition "are still very serious and the people are still very concerned about them".

Nigeria oil spills: Shell rejects liability claim

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has rejected claims by four Nigerian farmers that it should pay compensation for damage to their land.

The Nigerian farmers and their legal team argue that Shell could have prevented the spills

The farmers are suing the company in a civil court in The Hague, claiming oil spills ruined their livelihoods.

Shell's lawyers told the court it could not be held liable because most spills were caused by criminal damage.
They said repairs were hard to carry out because of insecurity in the Niger Delta.
Shell lawyer Jan de Bie Leuveling Tjeenk told the court that sabotage and oil theft were widespread in the region.
The case is being brought against Shell by the farmers and the Dutch arm of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
If their case is successful it could pave the way for thousands of other compensation claims, says the BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague.
It is the first time a Dutch multinational has been taken to a civil court in the Netherlands in connection with damage caused abroad.
The case is linked to spills in Goi, Ogoniland; Oruma in Bayelsa State and a third in Ikot Ada Udo, Akwa Ibom State.
'Sabotage'
Earlier, Channa Samkalden, lawyer for the Nigerians, told the court that Shell had failed to maintain its pipelines, clean up leaks and prevent pollution.
"Shell knew for a long time that the pipeline was damaged but didn't do anything. They could have stopped the leaks," she said.
Judges are now considering the evidence and a ruling is expected early next year.
Speaking to the BBC before the hearing, one of the plaintiffs, Friday Alfred Akpan from the village of Ikot Ada Udo, said the oil leaks in his village had badly damaged his 47 fish ponds.
"Fish died as a result of the oil spill, making it difficult for me to live and put my children through school."
He told the BBC's Newsday programme he wanted compensation for the loss, and for Shell to clean up the spill.
Shell official Allard Castelein told the BBC the spills in question "were all caused by sabotage".
"I mean, there's video evidence. There's signed testimonies by joint investigation teams that are constituted of the local municipality, the company, the government."
In a statement, the company said: "The real tragedy of the Niger Delta is the widespread and continual criminal activity, including sabotage, theft and illegal refining, that causes the vast majority of oil spills.
"It is this criminality which all organisations with an interest in Nigeria's future should focus their efforts on highlighting and addressing."
Shell says it has cleaned up pollution at the three locations in question and this has been certified by relevant Nigerian authorities.
Militant groups have for years waged a violent campaign in the Niger Delta, demanding that local people see more of the benefits of the region's oil wealth - there is also a huge problem of oil theft in the area.
Last year, a report by the United Nations Environment Programmesaid that over half a century of oil operation in the region, by firms including Shell, had caused deeper damage to the Ogoniland area of the Niger Delta than earlier estimated.
The company has accepted responsibility for two specific spills in the region in 2008, saying it would settle the case under Nigerian law.

Chinese author Mo Yan wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Chinese author Mo Yan has been awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for literature.

Mo Yan is the author's pen name, which means 'don't speak'

A prolific author, Mo has published dozens of short stories, with his first work published in 1981.

The Swedish Academy praised his work which "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".
The 57-year-old is the first Chinese resident to win the prize. Chinese-born Gao Xingjian was honoured in 2000, but is a French citizen.
Mo is the 109th recipient of the prestigious prize, won last year by Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer.
Presented by the Nobel Foundation, the award - only given to living writers - is worth 8 million kronor (£741,000).
"He has such a unique way of writing. If you read half a page of Mo Yan you immediately recognise it as him," said Peter Englund, head of the Academy.
He said Mo had been told of the award, adding: "He was at home with his dad. He said he was overjoyed and terrified."
Born Guan Moye, the author writes under the pen name Mo Yan, which means "don't speak" in Chinese.
He began writing while a soldier in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and received international fame in 1987 for Red Sorghum: A Novel of China.
Made into a film which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1988, the novella was a tale of the brutal violence in the eastern China countryside where he grew up during the 1920s and 1930s.

Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Peter Englund, announced the award
Favouring to write about China's past rather than contemporary issues, the settings for Mo's works range from the 1911 revolution, Japan's wartime invasion and Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.
"He has a very impressive oeuvre," Michel Hockx, Professor of Chinese at the University of London, said.
"He has a large readership and he addresses the human condition in a way in which the Nobel Committee likes to see."
Mo's other acclaimed works include Republic of Wine, Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out and Big Breasts and Wide Hips.
The latter book caused controversy when it was published in 1995 for its sexual content and depicting a class struggle contrary to the Chinese Communist Party line.
The author was forced by the PLA to withdraw it from publication although it was pirated many times.
After it was translated into English a decade later, the book won him a nomination for the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Chinese people react to the news that writer Mo Yan has won the 2012 Nobel Prize for literature
Despite his social criticism Mo is seen in his homeland as one of the foremost contemporary authors, however critics have accused him of being too close to the Communist Party.
"A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature," the author said in a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009.
"Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions."
His latest novel, Frog, about China's "one child" population control policy, won the Mao Dun Literature Prize - one of his country's most prestigious literature prizes - last year.
Mo and the other Nobel laureates for medicine, physics, chemistry and peace, will receive their prizes at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on 10 December - the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel in 1896.

US Navy funds 'MacGyver' robot that can create tools

A US team aims to build a robot that can work out how to use nearby objects to solve problems or escape threats.

The US Navy said its MacGyver Bot project could create a first-of-its-kind team-mate for its personnel

The machine has been dubbed a MacGyver Bot, after the TV character who cobbled together devices to escape life-threatening situations.

The challenge is to develop software that "understands" what objects are in order to deduce how they can be used.
The US Navy is funding the project and says the machines might ultimately be deployed alongside humans.
It is providing $900,000 (£562,000) to robotics researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology to carry out the work.
"Our goal is to develop a robot that behaves like MacGyver, the television character from the 1980s who solved complex problems and escaped dangerous situations by using everyday objects and materials he found at hand," said project leader Prof Mike Stilman.
"Researchers in the robot motion planning field have traditionally used computerised vision systems to locate objects in a cluttered environment to plan collision-free paths, but these systems have not provided any information about the objects' functions."
Rescue bot
Mr Stilman said he planned to create software that first identified an object, then determined potential things that could be done with it, before turning it into "a simple machine" that could be used to complete an action.
Examples given include stacking boxes to climb over something, building a bridge out of debris or climbing on a chair to grab an object out of reach.
By the project's end, the software should be able to combine such tasks when necessary.
To test whether this is the case, the researchers hope to load the code onto Golem Krang - a robot already developed by Mr Stillman's laboratory - to see if it works in action.
The researchers ultimately envisage a situation in which the machine might be deployed to rescue trapped officers without needing to risk anyone else's life.
Perception problem
One UK-based artificial intelligence (AI) researcher said the challenge was harder that it sounded.
"For example, vision alone is not enough to tell you if an object can support your weight or be used as a lever - you need to interact with it physically to understand its physical possibilities," Prof Barbara Webb, from the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, told the BBC.
"This is probably a harder problem for current robotics than making a plan to solve the task."
Another AI expert suggested the project might like to draw on existing research into how animals use tools.
"A monkey will use a stick to reach a longer stick to reach an out-of-reach banana," said Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield.
"A crow will bend a piece of wire to get a trapped food.
"I have seen this kind of work with robots, but it is a very difficult project and like all research may not work as planned, but it is well worth the effort and will advance the field."

Samsung announces Galaxy S3 Mini smartphone

Samsung has unveiled a smaller version of its Galaxy S3 smartphone, reducing the screen size by 0.8 of an inch to 4 inches, bringing it in line with Apple's iPhone 5.


The smartphone can track a user's eyes to remain illuminated when being looked at

The handset runs on Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google's Android operating system.

Samsung has not yet shared details of when the device will go on sale.
The announcement comes at a time Apple are expected to launch a 7-inch iPad, although that has yet to be confirmed.
The Galaxy S3 Mini, details of which had been widely leaked prior to Thursday's announcement, comes just six months after the launch of the well-received larger model.
The Mini has a five megapixel camera on its rear, with a lower quality VGA camera on its front.
It retains some key features of the larger model, such as an Near Field Communication (NFC) chip, which enables contactless payments.
Sacrificed in the downsize is some processing power - the model drops from the big S3's quad-core chip to a dual-care - and some screen clarity.
The S3 Mini's display offers fewer pixels - 800x480 - compared to the higher definition 720p display of the original.
While obviously smaller in size, the S3 Mini is a millimetre thicker.
'Just too big'
Stuart Miles, editor of UK gadget website Pocket-lint, told the BBC he thinks Samsung are playing a shrewd move to react to the demands of the market.
"I think from Samsung's point of view its about offering breadth and depth of choice.
"There's lots of people out there who thing the Galaxy S3 is an amazing phone, but there's a lot who think it's just too big."
He said the impressive early sales of the iPhone 5 will have spurred the need for a smaller competing device.
"If you see that there's a massive demand for a 4-inch screen device, and you have the capability to make it, then you're going to make it, aren't you? I think it will do really well."
Simon Stanford, vice president of Samsung UK's telecommunications and networks division, said in a statement: "We will continue to develop smartphones to cater for a variety of customer needs and this latest release demonstrates our ongoing commitment to offering our customers more choice at every price point."

Mozilla Firefox browser upgrade taken offline due to vulnerability

The latest version of Mozilla's Firefox browser has been taken offline after a security vulnerability was discovered.

The Firefox browser is used by millions worldwide
Users who had upgraded to version 16 were advised to downgrade to the previous safe release until Firefox developers released a fix.

The vulnerability allowed "a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited", Mozilla said.
The non-profit company said that only a "limited number of users are affected".
The download had been taken offline within a day of its initial release, the organisation's UK spokesman said.
He added that no users had been upgraded automatically to the new version.
Automatically upgraded
In a blog post, Mozilla's director of security assurance Michael Coates said a fix was being worked on and should be expected on Thursday.
"At this time we have no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild," he added.
"Firefox 16 has been temporarily removed from the current installer page and users will automatically be upgraded to the new version as soon as it becomes available.
"As a precaution, users can downgrade to version 15.0.1 by following these instructions. Alternatively, users can wait until our patches are issued and automatically applied to address the vulnerability."
Firefox was one of the three leading web browsers, with more than 450 million users worldwide, Mozilla said.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer and relative newcomer Google Chrome are its key competitors.
In recent months, various figures suggested Chrome had overtaken Firefox's market share, pushing the Mozilla Foundation's flagship product into third place in the browser race.

Senator Opens Investigation of Data Brokers

The multibillion-dollar data brokerage industry, a growing force in online marketing, is drawing intensified government scrutiny.

Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Senator John D. Rockefeller
 
On Wednesday, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, opened an extensiveinvestigation of nine leading information brokers. Because Americans now conduct much of their daily business online, the senator said he was concerned that “an unprecedented amount” of personal, medical and financial information about people could be collected, mined and sold, to the potential detriment of consumers.
“An ever-increasing percentage of their lives will be available for download, and the digital footprint they will inevitably leave behind will become more specific and potentially damaging, if used improperly,” Mr. Rockefeller, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, wrote in letters to the data brokers. “It is critical that we understand what information companies like yours are already collecting and selling.”
Linda A. Woolley, the acting chief executive of the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group, called the senator’s investigation “a baseless fishing expedition.”
“I hope Senator Rockefeller understands what he’s tampering with,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
The Senate investigation represents the second Congressional inquiry into the industry’s practices this year. In July, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, co-chairmen of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, began a House inquiry into data compilers, which is ongoing. And the Federal Trade Commission has been looking into the practices of about a dozen major data brokers.
Data brokers collect a wide variety of information from public sources and third parties, including details like consumers’ financial status, race or ethnicity, buying history, hobbies, health concerns, travel preferences, Internet providers and social networks.
The companies often use the information for a practice called “database marketing” — that is, using data mining to help clients like retailers, banks and airlines tailor marketing pitches to their best customers or identify potential new ones.
Collecting, analyzing and selling such information for marketing purposes is perfectly legal. Indeed, it’s a huge business. Some data brokers have said they maintain several thousand details on the majority of adults in the United States.
But some legislators and regulators say they are concerned that neither they nor consumers know the extent of the material that data brokers collect; whom they disclose or sell it to; and exactly what they are doing with it.
Unlike consumer reporting agencies, which are required by federal law to show people their own credit reports and allow them to correct errors, data brokers are not required to show consumers information collected about them for marketing purposes.
Earlier this year in a report on protecting consumer privacy, the F.T.C. urged the industry to create a centralized Web portal where consumers could learn about companies’ practices and their options for controlling information collected about them. The agency also recommended that Congress pass legislation giving people access to information that data brokers hold about them. Underlying regulators’ efforts is their concern that some information brokers could create financial dossiers about individuals that are akin to credit reports and use them to unfairly exclude individual consumers from certain offers or charge some people higher prices than others.
“There are data brokers whose marketing lists may not cross the line into credit reports but come very close,” said Julie Brill, a member of the F.T.C. “The question is whether the lists are being used for marketing purposes or for something very close to credit purposes.”
Industry representatives say that data-based marketers use consumer marketing data for legitimate commercial practices, not for regulated purposes like making offers of credit or insurance.
They add that collecting marketing data benefits consumers because it allows companies to send people offers for products and services they are interested in. It also increases efficiency because companies know ahead of time not to send pitches for, say, lawn mowers to people who live in apartments.
“Consumers love getting what they want — information, products, benefits, upgrades — when they want it,” said Ms. Woolley of the Direct Marketing Association. “There is no evidence that data-driven marketing harms consumers in any way.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Rockefeller sent letters of inquiry to established database marketers like Acxiom, headquartered in Little Rock, Ark.; credit reporting agencies like Experian and Equifax, which have separate marketing arms; and newer companies, like Rapleaf and Datalogix, that specialize in helping companies pursue online and mobile consumers.
Mr. Rockefeller asked each company to provide extensive business details about its data collection operations since Jan. 1, 2009.
Scott Howe, the chief executive of Acxiom, said the company looked “forward to continuing to work with the Congress to help the members gain a deeper understanding of Acxiom’s business and how people and the economy benefit from the appropriate use of data.”
In an e-mail, Demitra L. Wilson, a spokeswoman for Equifax, said the company is not a data broker and that the only a small portion of its business involves unregulated, aggregated data about consumers.
And Gerry Tschopp, a spokesman for Experian, said the company welcomed the opportunity to discuss “the benefits of the appropriate use of consumer data” with legislators.
Representatives of Datalogix and Rapleaf did not immediately respond to e-mail and phone requests for comment.
Mr. Rockefeller asked the companies to respond by Nov. 2.

Even Small Players Can Seize the Day With an App Strategy

Sheri Gurock, co-founder of Magic Beans, a store that specializes in toys and baby gear, first used a mobile app in 2010.

 

In the summer of 2010, Sheri Gurock, co-founder of Magic Beans, a retailer specializing in toys and baby gear, decided to join the mobile app craze. But her timing may have been a little off.

Ms. Gurock deployed an app that allowed in-store customers to bypass the cash registers and check out their purchases themselves, on their mobile devices. Magic Beans got the app at no charge by working with its creator and agreeing to be a retail testing ground.

The app also allowed customers to scan a bar code to get product information, descriptions and reviews that had previously been available only to customers shopping online. When a customer bought an item usingAisleBuyer, the app would automatically recommend two related products in the store and offer discounts and coupons. That resulted in an 8 percent increase in sales to those who used the app, Ms. Gurock said.

But the app has been used by just 5 percent of customers, Ms. Gurock said. Although she contends mobile self-checkout represents the future of retail, Magic Beans, which has five stores in the Boston area and 50 employees, was “very early to the party,” she said. “This app was on a mission to change 100 years of shopping habits, where the in-store experience is bringing your items to a cashier.”

As a result, she said Magic Beans was phasing out AisleBuyer, but she expected to try again — and with good reason. By the end of this year, according to the digital marketing firm eMarketer, there will be 116 million smartphone users in the United States.

At that point, reports Cisco, the number of mobile-connected devices globally will exceed the number of people. That is a large and expanding canvas for apps when consumers have come to expect one for almost everything, said Noah Elkin, an analyst with eMarketer. “It’s getting to the point where apps are similar to search,” he said. “If you don’t get any results for a brand, that brand doesn’t exist.”

That puts growing pressure on small businesses to create and publish their own apps. This guide looks at the experiences of several companies that have tried.

BUILDING IT: THE BASICS There are essentially two kinds of apps. Native apps are written for specific operating systems — Apple’s iOS, for example, or Google’s Android — and are installed directly on a device. They are available through online stores like iTunes or Google Play. Mobile Web apps run on a device’s Web browser — and because of that can be slower — but they work on a variety of systems. There is no app store for the mobile Web so those apps can be harder for consumers to find.

Small businesses can build native and mobile Web apps using do-it-yourself tools or by hiring a developer to custom-design one. Tiggzi, a development platform made by Exadel, offers drag-and-drop tools for building apps and integrates services like Facebook andOpenTable.

Titanium from Appcelerator does not require developers to have deep programming experience, but they do need to know JavaScript, HTML or CSS. EachScape, which also uses drag-and-drop tools, lets users build and manage apps that are delivered to a device as a native app.

Most platforms allow the builder to add features like push notifications (alerts that can announce sales, for example) and the ability to connect to social networks.

The cost depends on the scope and complexity of the app, Mr. Elkin said. For example, using Tiggzi, which is a cloud-based subscription service, the cost ranges from free for one app to $50 a month for 50. Custom designing an app can cost several thousand dollars.

MARKETING TOOL PrimeGenesis, an executive consulting firm in Stamford, Conn., created an iPad app last year to encourage users to buy the firm’s book, “The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan,” written by three of the company’s founders.

The firm has 13 partners and about $2 million in annual revenue, and it used Mobile Distortion, an app developer in San Diego. The app, which cost about $35,000, provides executives entering a new company with an interactive, mobile template for creating and carrying out a 100-day action plan.

PrimeGenesis sells the full app for $9.99 (a basic version is free), but George Bradt, managing director, says the firm measures the app’s success by the number of clients it produces. “The app is there to drive people to the book, which markets our firm,” he said.

Each new client it attracts represents about $50,000 in revenue. “If we sell 10,000 books a year and convert five buyers into consulting assignments,” Mr. Bradt said, “that’s a quarter of a million dollars.”

SUPPLYING INFORMATION In June, Zeitlin & Company Realtors in Nashville introduced an app that puts updated Multiple Listing Service data at the fingertips of its agents, clients and potential clients. Zeitlin has 130 employees and about $8 million in annual revenue.

Its app takes a user’s location and creates a map of all the homes for sale in the immediate vicinity. It gives information about each house, including lot size and price, as well as school zoning and nearby restaurants, banks and grocery stores, said Sam Averbuch, a co-owner and the company’s chief financial officer.

A house hunter can mark a particular house as a favorite and that preference is stored in the cloud, so the agent can see it and then suggest other, similar homes in the neighborhood. Users can get information on any house they see and like, even if the house does not have a “for sale” sign out front.

Created by Virtual Properties, a developer in Madison, Wis., that specializes in the real estate industry, the app has been downloaded more than 1,500 times since it was introduced a few months ago. It costs $25,000 annually, which covers both the initial development fee and the expense of keeping the information up-to-date.

DEEPEN BRAND LOYALTY Carpe Diem Private Preschool, which has 120 employees, $5.8 million in annual revenue and four preschools in suburban Dallas, created an app in August 2011 to let parents observe their children through a classroom webcam.

The app, which cost about $5,000, was developed by one of the school’s founders, Tim Murphree, who happens to be a Web developer. Mr. Murphree wrote the most recent version using PhoneGap, a free, open-source framework for creating apps.

Ashley Murphree, a co-founder who is Mr. Murphree’s wife, wanted the app to reinforce the brand’s image as an innovative preschool that embraces new technology. “I think it sets us apart and has helped us gain new customers,” Ms. Murphree said. “The app says we are making a commitment to always improving.”

BE SURE YOU ARE READY Salumeria Biellese, which produces a variety of handmade cured salami and sausage, had the advertising firm Quinn Fable redo its Web site and create an app for customers, largely restaurants and wholesalers.

Salumeria Biellese has 20 employees spread among its Hackensack, N.J., production plant, its Manhattan retail store, and a Manhattan restaurant called Biricchino.

Fouad Alsharif, one of three owners, said the company is eager to introduce the app, which will allow customers to place and review orders using mobile devices, but it is waiting until it has the back-end infrastructure in place to support the app’s functions.

“We are in the process of expanding our production facility, adding drying rooms and refrigeration,” Mr. Alsharif said. “If I advertise that we have 100 pieces of a product available, it has to be available. So we can’t launch until we are really ready for it.”