The creators of the Viviti web-building site are young Canadian entrepreneurs from British Columbia. I found out about Viviti when it just started, through Bravenet.They were promoting the site and asking for Beta testers.
I started a few sites when in Beta, three months before they put up the total websites worldwide in Sept./08, and there were less than 1000 sites world-wide at that time. By Dec.1/08 when it went into Open Beta and was made public, there were over 5000 sites. It has been out of Beta since April when there were over 10,000 sites. I have seen all of the bugs being worked out and all of the new widgets and improvements that have been requested by the Beta testers. It has come a long way since it's introduction.
Viviti is an excellent blogging platform, with the ability to create categories for your posts so that you can blog about different topics on one site. It can be personalized with fully editable content boxes, several image boxes, including a Flickr gallery, widgets for social media like Twitter, Facebook Updates and You tube, audio player, Embeded Flash, but it is also great for businesses with business widgets like Paypal and Bookfresh Online Scheduling.
There are lots of themes for your site, or, you can create your own custom theme, there are step by step instructions in the Wiki for less experienced users. You can even make custom favicons (icons that show up on the tabs and address bar) or select from several ready made ones. It is very user-friendly and customizable. You can keep track of your website activity easily without leaving your site. It is easier to customize your site if you can see what the changes look like a soon as you make them. When you are logged in, there is a bar at the top of the page
and a status bar at the bottom that lets you do whatever needs to be done to create and maintain your website.
I have my homepage, My Favourites Place, on Viviti as well as a family reunion site, and my business site, which I'm still working on. I started My Loyalist Heritage, a blog site after it was out of Beta, to see what features are available with a free site. My other sites are "Custom Free Sites" for Beta testers which is the equivalent of a $5.00 mo. site. You can do everything on a free site as the payed versions, there's less storage and 15 page. maximum but there aren't any limits on how many free sites you can have.
For anyone wishing to have a more flexible blog, personal or business website, I recommend Viviti.com. Check it out, you'll be amazed at what a few west-coast Canucks have come up with!