Yet what is almost an afterthought is the actual payload structured as XML. After all, it's XML which provides Web services their platform/language independence, but as it turns out, there are certain Web service scenarios in which better payload alternatives can be used, one of them being JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), an approach which has recently grown in popularity for Web service clients in the form of a browser.
As its names implies, JSON is simply a data format, but one which is more naturally fit for browser data consumption. The reason for this is that JSON is a subset to JavaScript, the de facto programming language used in all browsers. By structuring a data payload as a JSON response, you are effectively bypassing the need to parse an XML document in a browser -- typically done via JavaScript of course -- to get to the actual data.
