Pretty sure Muecas got its name from "Shen
Mue Cast" as it featured staff members that worked on the game.
I definitely remember the cryptic but promising quote on the Dec 2003 update:
"Dear Shenmue fans all over the world! Thanks for the messages, and we truly appreciate your great support. Unfortunately, we don't have anything to announce at this point. But we believe that we have something for you in the future. Please have a Merry Merry X'mas and a Happy New Year!! "
and then just a few months later (March or April 2004?) Muecas announced they wouldn't be updating anymore and it came as a pretty devastating blow as it indicated that Shenmue's future really was on hold indefinitely.
Here's a topic I just dug up from May 2004:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14583&start=10So yeah, in May 2004, we find out that Muecas is closing. At this point, Digital Rex had already been managing the page for several months (since Oct 2003), so that must have been the time when Sega AM2 gave way to Digital Rex.
And in that topic Kiyuu also states that the Shenmue team had been the ones to update the page for the past 3 years - so it would seem Muecas was around since 2001 at least, long before Digital Rex was formed.
One question I still want to know the answer to is the one of whether or not Digital Rex really was ever working on Shenmue, or if they came close to announcing that they would be - wasn't it was pretty heavily rumored that Digital Rex would have something to show at e3 in 2004? But nothing ever happened and Digital Rex disappeared into the void right around the same time as Muecas closing and e3.
Anyway, Kiyuu might chime in and be able to tell you more about the Muecas and when it was first created exactly. I think the updates were all still up on
http://www.shenmue.com until the site went down. Unfortunately it would seem the old Shenmue.com is gone for good now.