Hasta La Ideas

First, the good news. The umbrella home page for Patch looks better than anything we saw there during the AOL era. We’re talking crisp, clean highlighting of current content and an inviting black-and-white thumbnail grid that clicks through to so-called Star Patchers. The new Patch is also looking for reporters across New Jersey.

However, the Hale Global folks might have wanted to think through their grassroots framing of another presently vacant position. Somehow, this doesn’t have quite the right recruitment, headhunter feel:

Patch appears in many ways to have moved towards more of an Examiner model. Having inherited an operation that was doomed by overly aggressive expansion, it’s a minor media miracle for this place to still be Web live and Your-Face-Here, our-laptop-there hiring.