Definition for service interface

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving one or more service descriptions, the web service descriptions being represented in a standardized format, at least one of the one or more web service descriptions pertaining to an e-mail service;
• ascertaining, from the web service, wherein the common web service properties for one or more web service, wherein the common web service properties includes a property associated with a homepage uniform resource locator (URL) and a property associated with a visually-renderable display for a web service that is expressed via display tag, the property associated with the visually-renderable display for a web service comprising an icon property associated with a displayable icon;
• ascertaining, from the web service descriptions, web service-specific functionality for the e-mail services, the ascertaining including an ability to ascertain one or more optional parameters, associated with the e-mail service, within the web service descriptions;
• and
• providing one or more services based upon the service descriptions.

A system comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media;
• computer-readable instructions on the one or more computer readable storage media which, when executed, provide a Web browser configured to:
• receive one or more service descriptions, the web service descriptions being represented in a standardized format expressed in XML;
• ascertain, from with a first node of the web service descriptions, common web service properties for one or more services, the common web service properties include a property associated with a homepage uniform resource locator (URL) and a property associated with a visually-renderable display for a web service, the property associated with the visually-renderable display for a web service being expressed via a display tag and comprising properties associated with a name, a displayable icon, and a description;
• ascertain, from within a different node of the web service descriptions, web service-specific functionality for one or more web services;
• and
• provide one or more services based upon the web service descriptions;
• wherein said standardized format can be used to extend an existing web service by defining and adding a new namespace to the existing web service description and describing parameters relative to a newly-defined namespace, the parameters including at least one variable the is indicated as optional;
• and
• wherein the standardized format uses at least one namespace to describe said one or more web services.