For the kickoff, BlackBerry is the sole sponsor. The smartphone brand gets a “presented by” at the top of the site’s frame and has a sizable color spot that follows each slide.

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Among the seven different ways to view it, the “serendipity” mode is the default layout. It features two horizontal rows of eight headlines and small graph for each section. A major news story is highlighted on the upper left. Staying within the sections, users can click a “next” or “previous button,” which slides from left to right to show additional stories. Clicking an individual post brings up an article the way it typically looks on the site. The others, such as “Flow” (pictured, left), which displays headlines and brief summaries in a wrap-around format, that represent slight stylistic modifications. Another option is “Fridge,” which shows headlines, bylines and brief summaries in a design similar to word magnets for refrigerators (though to me, it more closely resembled a ransom note).

The NYT first started testing the Skimmer back in February. In a way, it’s designed to solve a problem that was highlighted in May by NYT columnist David Carr, when he compared the value of print ads and online newspaper spots. He pointed out that Tiffany had occupied a spot on page three of the NYT for a century. Until online newspapers came up with an equivalent to that kind of ad placement, internet ad dollars would be unable to compensate for lost print revenue. It’s hard to say if NYTimes.com readers will adopt Skimmer—online is mostly about searching for news, as opposed to browsing through an entire newspaper. But as publishers wait for digital tablets to emerge, this at least gives the NYT something to talk about.