Patch, Refreshed

No, you're not losing it. Patch looks different today. We did a quick visual nip-and-tuck to the homepage to make it even more user-friendly.

And we've moved a couple of pieces of furniture. For those keeping score:

• Traffic & Gas is now Commute. In this section, you can find up-to-the-minute information on gas prices in town (with the Connecticut average now over $4/gallon, that’s good to know before you leave the house) and where you might find slowdowns on the roads.

• Places, which is the complete listing of every business, nonprofit and municipal office in town, is again being called Directory. We are so proud of our Directory, and the way it makes Patch the one-stop place for all the information you need about the community. We invite business owners to claim their listing—it is super easy.

• Our Neighborhood Gallery, where you can upload all your great photos from life in town, is now called Pics & Clips. You can upload not just photos to Patch, but also all your fun videos.

• We moved the weather icon next to the Patch branding so you can find it more quickly.

• We moved, well, YOU closer to the top. (Our "shout stream" is now front and center to show all your comments off.)

• In the center of the home page, just underneath the comment stream, you’ll see a new area called …What’s Up With You? We wanted to make it even easier (if that’s possible!) for you to add your photos and videos, your thoughts and opinions on the Local Voices blogging platform, and your events to our site. So we’ve added these three links for you here.

• And of course we prettified a few things.

While the site might look a little different today, we still offer the same coverage of everything happening in your community. That was, is, and will always be our mission. We hope you like our “refreshed” home page and we'd love to know what you think of our tweaks — email me or offer a comment below.