Auckland-based online music guide and text message service Mukuna is expanding to include Wellington. The online guide to live music and DJ gigs in the capital launched in the beginning of December, says Jeff Root, one of the founders.
Root started the company in 2007 together with his wife, Lisa Salmon, and Manuel Matisi, aka DJ Manuel Bundy.
Mukuna is not only a guide; it is also a tool for syndicating music event listings to other websites. The system has three main parts — the website, which lists gigs in Auckland and Wellington; a syndication system, which automatically updates the promoters’ websites and their MySpace pages; and an SMS gigs-by-text feature, says Root.
Salmon, Mukuna’s lead programmer, completely re-built the system three months ago in order to enable the addition of a different content type, such as film, or another geographic area, says Root. The system is built using the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). Mukuna’s services now cover both Auckland and Wellington, and in the future it will be easy to add another city or content type, he says.
The SMS feature allows users to ask for the information they want, when they want it. Users can text a music genre, neighbourhood, day of the week or venue name, or any combination of the four, to Mukuna and the system sends back a text message with a list of the relevant gigs, says Root. If users reply saying “more”, they will get a another SMS with more information.
The team of three has recently grown by the addition of David Carroll, aka Nyntee, label manager for independent music distributor Rhythmethod and a DJ; and Jef Kay, co-founder of GeorgeFM. Carroll and Kay look after business development and marketing, says Root.