Online server for desktop app - implement as web-server or custom socket application?

A bit of a generic question but let's say you have a desktop app that allows a user to connect to a central server and provides functionality like:

• Login
• Ability to auto-download profile data on login
• Download and uploading save files through the app

A web-server (JSP/ASP.NET/PHP/etc) would do lots of work for you especially on the request-serving and threading front, but it seems a bit of a cheat for a desktop app to use HTTP requests like this.

All thoughts welcome. Maybe this should be community wiki?

If you want to leave things open for other possibilities in the future, go with a web server. That way, if you decide to write a web-based version of your desktop app (or an iPhone/Pre/Android application), you don't have to rewrite your socket server. Almost everything can speak HTTP these days.