One component at the heart of Web 2.0 is the web service. In simplest terms, a web service is a piece of software—often referred to as an advanced programming interface (API)—that communicates over a common network protocol such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The image courtesy of the World Wide Web Consortium demonstrates this interaction.
The distinct advantage for Web development companies in building custom web services for organizations is that it allows them to provision machine interoperability across both local and wide area network architectures. In other words, a web service can connect dissimilar systems such as Linux servers with Microsoft servers because both architectures are Web-enabled. A large Web development company in Albuquerque is Albuquerque Web Design; they use web services to build site functions like content management systems and search engine optimization (SEO).
Web hosting companies, such as Albuquerque's Southwest Cyberport, are another commercial sector that make use of web services. These services provide application bundles (e.g., shopping carts, blogging apps, and so forth) that can be installed by customers to their web sites and obtain updates for those applications (many of which are open source) as soon as they are released. This meets the very spirit of the Web 2.0 "evolution."
For larger enterprises, a popular web service format uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) in a "container" that transmits data from point A to B, (say an application server to a database server) utilizing the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) as the transport medium. Java or .NET are often the preferred languages for building these services.
What about a simpler example of a web service, perhaps an "everyday" example? Here's one: the sharing of a YouTube video via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LiveSpaces or Blogger.
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