Yesterday we launched 8tracks Forums, allowing our community of over 11 million registered listeners to communicate with one another in a more personal way. We’ve long allowed listeners to comment on mixes to show gratitude or engage DJs in a dialogue around the music:

Last year, some of our most active community members formed a group on Facebook — “8tracks Friends” — to facilitate shared conversations and support real-world friendships among group members. These weren’t the only listeners looking to build friendships with other 8tracks listeners and DJs, and we’ve received a growing number of requests for private messaging.

As we began to think about a way to encourage interactions between members of the 8tracks community, we discovered Discourse, a dynamic, open source forum and private messaging platform that can be branched and personalized. Discourse gives us a smart way to facilitate conversations between — and speak directly with — the folks who care most about 8tracks, an essential step to making 8tracks the best music sharing community.

And that community is going to meet up IRL! This Friday, members of the original 8tracks Friends group on Facebook will be flying into San Francisco from around the country to meet us and one another in person for the first time. We’re beyond excited.

Finally, we’d like to welcome and introduce you to Monica Semergiu, who will lead 8tracks’ community building efforts as our Community Manager. As we grow and evolve, it’s important for us to remember and support our community, the crown jewel of 8tracks and a daily reminder of why we do what we do.