Background: I developed a Flash/PHP/MySQL game that works well. It is a fairly basic implementation, mostly involving user login, map coordinates, player data, etc.
Currently: Developing some Flash widgets that will display various data. XML data from various database are ready to go, but the widget will require its own database for user preferences, banners, HTML, etc. Unlike my personal project, this one will be built using a .NET 3.5 server-side script (either VB.NET or C#.NET).
My Question: Should I setup a .NET Web Site or a Web Service to communicate with a Flash widget? Here are the pros and cons I am looking at, let me know if I am misinformed about something, off-base or on-target. 
Web Site: Seems simpler. Flash can make HTTP GET/POST requests and the web site responds. The data returned will be simple HTML docs, or key/value pairs. This seems very similar to Flash/PHP/MySQL, but this time it will be Flash/.NET/SQL.
RESTful Web Service: Seems complex, without obvious benefits. It can return HTML or key/value pairs, GET/POST, etc. The benefit seems to be ‘serialization’, so that requests are tracked and logged? The definition at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7ay27kt9(VS.71).aspx does not make much sense, because a Web Site can do the same thing.
Any insight or info on this would be great! Thank you
EDIT: BTW, I would probably refer to “Serialization” as “Encoding”. For instance, if I want to transport binary data over something that is text-based, I would “encode” it. Seems like 6 of 1, half dozen of the other. Example: Serialization using the Basic Encoding Rules: http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/1906/22.htm
Update: Someone explained it like this on Serialization: Allows you to send ‘objects’ over the wire, instead of just encoded strings or data.
Update 2: Answer so far: A Web Site is a Web Service for Humans. 
Doesn’t really answer the question, but considering the whole RESTful stuff going on, it doesn’t matter much. Works for me.
