WILMINGTON -- The Port City now fits in the palm of your hand.
On Thursday, Slice of Life owner Ray Worrell officially launched a free app which solely highlights downtown eateries, shops and attractions.
"I witness everyday more people on their phone searching things, looking for things on their iPad or their mobile device," said Worrell. "Basically we're wanting to help promote downtown and make it so that downtown has its own little Internet built into an app."
It shows users the closest places to eat, sleep, shop and sightsee based on their current location.
"Everybody would always say, 'We're competing against each other,' and I would say 'No, we need to look at this a different way. We're all in the same boat, we're all downtown. We need to get people to come downtown and promote downtown together,'" said Worrell.
While almost all of the businesses downtown are already on the app, some merchants paid to have and manage their own page.
"When you look at it from an annual basis it's like less than $10 a month, so when you spread it out like that, you can't do an ad, a printed ad for that," said business owner Joan Loch. "I can measure this. I will get reports on whether people are interested in my page."
While it's not a new concept, Worrell said downtown deserved its very own app.
"Downtown has a lot to offer. The theater, the Riverwalk, things that nowhere in Wilmington, they try to duplicate it, but you can't duplicate," said Worrell.
With very little advertising, the app was downloaded around 20,000 times in the first month.
Worrell credited this to advertising done on other Wilmington apps created by the same company. To find the app, do a search for "downtown Wilmington" in the Apple or Android app store.