Search for Web services leads to Google
C|Net | at | by Mike
Google may have accomplished something that few in the technology industry can even boast of understanding: building a Web service that software developers can actually use. When Google recently opened its technology so that third-party developers of much-hyped Web services can tie in to the company's catalog of 2 billion documents, it signaled its intentions to amass significant interest in its search tools among software programmers.
What separates Google's Web services approach from those of larger technology companies is that the search specialist has attempted to inspire developers through a relatively simple tool: an API that lets a developer tap into its search franchise. Though most initial uses of Web services are being built by corporations and might solve esoteric problems the public may never know of or care about, Google has taken the Web services concept and made it real for the software development community--an enviable task amid rampant confusion over just what a Web service is supposed to be.