Although promising  great innovation, as is the case with music mash-ups, framework mash-ups can be fairly hit and miss. Sometimes this will be due to each component’s inherent characteristics but, more of than than not, it is actually a reflection of how skillfully the individual  parts have been sculpted together by the mash-up artist.

I have recently stumbled upon a number of interesting posts that demonstrate how, with a little forethought, research and planning you can get the most from your mash-ups.  CJ Tech’s discussion of using Flex, Spring, BlazeDS and Hibernate , Glidias’ thoughts on best practices for a Gaia and PureMVC hybrid and TweenPix’s Papervision3D and Box2D crayon physics are all definitely worth a look for a host of different reasons.

Conceptual frameworks of any kind present a preferred and reliable approach to the development of  an idea, activity and solution. Transcending problem solving, architecture, computer science and more reactionary disciplines, common aproaches that are derived from shared experience form the basis of  our modern existence.

Only 5 years ago, web development’s all encompassing  mix of  hobbyists, creatives and technologists, combined with the slow maturation of many languages and platforms, continued to pose huge barriers to the creation and reuse of successful frameworks. By total contrast, today’s web frameworks are finally manifesting the elegance, certainty and capacity for reuse that has been cherished by our ancestors since the dawn of time.

Maintaining interesting and vibrant social networking websites, blogs and more recently micro-blogs (we all love a good tweet right?) continue to be key activities that must be engaged to sustain exposure and successfully deliver messages within the ever changing world of Web 2.0 technologies and methodologies.

Many organisations now regularly employ large teams who are dedicated solely to these activities and, as always, those buinesses who ignore these advancements  do so at their commercial peril. As expressed by this random silicon valley employee, who can really afford not to exploit the benefits of the digital communication age?

Custom Widgets would like thank the many talented individuals, groups and organisations who continue to share their art, knowledge and resources for the greater good of the online communities they respresent. Okay, maybe this isn’t always for perfectly altruistic purposes but, hey, why shouldn’t people benefit from their own hard work?

If you have a spare moment available today, check out our lab experiments for some, ahem, creative variations of  popular example sources and games. Credits and links are provided for each experiment where attributable.

This blog is intended to give insight into the some of the challenges and rewards experienced during the creation of this website. Over the past 12 weeks, everything you see here has been hand crafted using a combination of (mostly) free software, real world experience and useful tutorials that are freely available on the internet.

Over the coming months, we will be discussing in depth the individual activities undertaken and aim to provide  examples to key concepts where appropriate. From conceptualisation to implementation, we will be discussing it all: strategy, hosting, creative development, technical development, implementation, testing and optimisation.