1.	Think of the Internet as an onion. At its core are the ancient protocols, the lizard brain of the Internet. TCP is at the core (maybe something is even deeper than that, but I have no idea what it is). The next layer out is DNS, which is an application of TCP.
2.	At the next layer are SMTP, FTP, POP, which depend on both TCP and DNS. More layers until you get to HTTP, and then HTML and GIF and JPEG, to the inner layers these look like mere content, but to the people working on outer layers they look like substrate, the basic ingredients that form the next level.
3.	Now near the outermost layer of the onion is XML 1.0. It's truly a marvel. A lovely specification, frozen in time, never-to-change, and it's so damned flexible, and so completely specified. Every day I work with XML I thank the gods for their gift. It works so well. Thank you. But XML 1.0 is no longer the outermost layer, there's another layer flickering into existence.
4.	There are two forks. One is called XML-RPC, and the other is called SOAP.
5.	Which one will be the next layer of the Internet, or will either of them be?