What is a “web service” in plain English?

Question

I\'ve been reading about \"web services\" here on SO, on Wikipedia, Google, etc., and I don\'t quite understand what they are. What is the plain English definition/descript

Answer 1

Simplified, non-technical explanation: A web serivce allows a PROGRAM to talk to a web page, instead of using your browser to open a web page.

Example: I can go to maps.google.com, and type in my home address, and see a map of where I live in my browser.

But what if you were writing a computer program where you wanted to take an address and show a pretty map, just like Google maps?

Well, you could write a whole new mapping program from scratch, OR you could call a web service that Google maps provides, send it the address, and it will return a graphical map of the location, which you can display in your program.

There is a lot more to it, as some of the other posts go into, but the upshot is that it allows your application to either retrieve information FROM, or submit information TO some resource. Some other examples:

1. You can use a web service to retrieve information about books at Amazon.com
2. You can use a similar web service to submit an order to Amazon.com
3. You could CREATE a web service to allow outside applications to find out about product information within your company
4. you could create a web service to allow outside applications to submit orders to your company.