1. A speech-enabled internet based computing system comprising: a speech recognition engine configured to generate a recognized speech query from an utterance; said speech recognition engine being further configured to distribute speech processing operations between a portable client device and a server device on a device-by-device basis, such that a plurality of portable client devices having differing computing capabilities can be supported; wherein individual ones of said plurality of portable client devices can be configured to perform at least part of said speech processing operations to generate said recognized speech query; a web page having a list of items, at least some of said list of items being selectable through a browser on said portable client device based on said recognized speech query.