Enhancing Your Site With Web Services

Web services are applications that interact with each other using web standards. You can think of a web service as a mini-application that does one relatively simple thing in response to input from either a user or another application. For example, a web service might translate a single word or sentence from one language to another, or, supplied with an interest rate and loan amount, calculate a mortgage repayment schedule. The PCV Software Tip of the Week RSS feed is a specialized version of a web service, in that it uses the web standards for XML and RSS to deliver our weekly tip archive to another site.

With hundreds of web services available, there may be something already out there that would be a benefit to your customers as they use your site. In other tips, we've discussed the availability of shipping calculators from both UPS and the U. S. Postal Service. Depending on the function and goals of your web site, there may be one or more web services already available to make your web site even more valuable to your customers, bringing them back more often and increasing the importance of your web site in achieving your business goals. One place to look is the Xmethods web site, which lists publicly-available web services, and allows you to try the service by entering whatever input information is required by the application. Need to validate a US Bank routing number? Retrieve location information for a particular zip code? Validate an email address? Get a stock quote? These services and more are readily available (some do require a fee, though).

Finally, perhaps you have an idea for a web service yourself, something you can provide for either your customers or your community that would not only benefit them, but bring potential customers to your web site. PCV Software can help you develop such a service as part of our "More than just web pages" philosophy.