CONTROLLING SERVICE DISCOVERY AND ACTIVATION AMONG PEERS

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media are provided for publishing, discovering, connecting with and activating services in a peer-to-peer environment. Services available in association with a first computing device are determined and encoded with instructions for accessing and understanding such services via their respective activation protocols. The encoded services are published via a publication protocol such that they are discoverable by at least a second computing device, irrespective of whether such services may be activated via the publication protocol. The second computing device discovers the available services via the publication protocol and accesses and understands the instructions associated with a desired service. Upon receipt of a request from the second computing device, via the activation protocol, to activate the requested service, the requested service is activated by the first computing device.