Introduction
The following document represents an initial review of the literature addressing web service applications. The purpose of the review is to provide the reader with an insight and understanding as to the main issues concerning the topic in question and therefore the literature review is intended to gradually build up the reader’s knowledge of the topic. As a result, this document will analyse the literature in order to provide an understanding as to the research context and the current thinking prevalent within it. The overall purpose of the literature review is to sufficiently acquaint the author with the research topic as to be able to identify and develop an area for further research.

The Rise of Web Services
Web services are predicated upon the development and proliferation of Web 2.0 (Schneckenberg 2009), such that the advent of Web 2.0 has transformed the manner in which society engage with the services provided over the Internet (Schneckenberg 2009). Web 2.0 has become the ‘buzz word’ of Internet based development (Shuen 2008) and encompasses applications which have today become part of our daily lives such as social networking sites (Facebook, Bebo, Myspace), blogs and video sharing sites (YouTube) (Solomon and Schrum 2007). In light of this, commentators in a number of quarters agree to the advances and changes heralded by Web 2.0, Shuen (2008) is of the opinion that
“It’s the biggest change in the organisation of the corporation in a century…in short, Web.20 is powering up the knowledge and network economy, starting with users, consumers, and digital natives, and accelerating as it transforms knowledge workers and businesses globally” (Shuen 2008).
In light of this, Web 2.0 has facilitated the sharing of information and online collaboration through a wide range of technologies, user interfaces and software applications (Joint 2010).

Application Programming Interfaces
An Application Programming Interface (API) is