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

A web service defines a contract of actions that a server will perform for you. The format and protocol doesn't really matter, but you should have some set definition of how the communication happens.

In your example, it depends, if that is being used in another application that reads that number, yes it is service, otherwise, it's just a webpage with a number.