Like the design, but I absolutely hate the brand name. You will forever be a Mashable-ripoff because of it. Nothing you can do now but ick, that was not a good decision.
I'm not sure I follow. Just because they end in the same 4 letters doesn't mean they have anything to do with one another. They are completely separate target audiences and demographics (technology aficionados/18 - 30 males compared to women's fashion and entertainment news/18 - 24 women). We've much more copied some other sites in our space like Gawker, Lemondrop, etc.
Think what you will, but I think that many tech visitors will make the same mistake - I almost didn't bother reading the link because of it.
The site is a bit of a font party, so I'd love to see how it would look with more Georgia and a bigger base font.
I love the concept of a pink colour scheme, but the colour of pink to the right seems to burn my eyes a little.
I'd also get rounded corners on all your pink boxes.
I think the site design would also benefit greatly from having only a single sidebar. Multiple sidebars is a trend I hate, because few, if anyone, are able to pull it off. Speaking of sidebar, it doesn't look as good with boxes with different widths compared to having a sidebar with similarly sized boxes.
Is the blog an Awl-Jezebel-esque concept, or what is the overall idea? It looks interesting.
I agree to a point - but not when the first brand gets to a certain popularity mass. Look, for example, at the "tube" segment. They all make me think back to Youtube as a brand. The four letters won't matter if they don't come after a brand that's massive like Mashable, in this case, it does though.
But it seems you will be OK for the reasons you say - much of your audience might not even know what Mashable is - or care enough to make the same association I did.
