About · our story

We built TuneFirst because music deserves better than a profile field.

TuneFirst is a music social network for people who care about music more than most. Most social apps treat music as an afterthought, a widget on a profile. We think it is the best introduction there is.

Streaming made music endless. Somewhere along the way, we lost the people.

Record shops were meeting places. Mixtapes were letters. Knowing someone's taste told you who they were.

Today almost every record ever made is a tap away, and it has never been easier to listen alone. The conversations that used to happen at the counter, on the forum, on the back of a tape, have thinned out.

Then we noticed that the best friendships we had started the same way: "Wait, you know that album too?" Not the huge ones. The record you carry around like a secret, until someone else turns out to carry it too.

Rare taste makes real bonds. Not "do you like the same music", but "do you love the same music that almost nobody else knows".

That is the idea behind TuneFirst: you name the music that is yours, and we help you find the people who named the same.

A record, not a feed

Why TuneFirst lives in your browser, and not in an app on your phone.

There are two ways to listen. You can stream: shuffle, skip, next, a thousand songs in an afternoon and none of them quite heard. Or you can put a record on: you choose it, you sit down, you listen to the whole side. Both have their place. TuneFirst is the record.

A phone app teaches your thumb to flick: swipe, scroll, next. That is fine for a lot of things. It is not how you get to know someone. So TuneFirst is made to be sat down with. The whole screen is there for the Galaxy, room to read someone's profile the way you read liner notes, to play the Tunes they love, and to write a note that says why you are reaching out.

  1. 01

    Nothing to swipe

    People come closer in the Galaxy because of what you share. You look, you read, you decide. Nobody is a card to flick away.

  2. 02

    No feed to scroll

    There is no endless stream of posts. Every page has a beginning and an end, in numbered chapters, like a sleeve.

  3. 03

    Nothing built to pull you back

    No streaks, no points, no "you are missing out". Notifications tell you what happened, and a busy chat is one line, not twenty.

  4. 04

    Room on the screen

    The Galaxy, a profile, a mixtape: they are made for a wide screen, and they fold down cleanly to a phone.

  5. 05

    Any device, nothing to install

    TuneFirst opens at app.tunefirst.online in any browser, on a laptop, a tablet or your phone. Your account is the same everywhere, and there is nothing to download or update.

Could there be an app one day? Maybe. If there is, it will be built the same way. Today, TuneFirst is the website, and it works wherever you have a browser.

What we believe

Four principles behind everything we build.

  1. 01

    Music first

    Your taste is your introduction. Before a photo, before a job title, before a bio.

  2. 02

    Rare picks matter

    Anyone can match on the biggest hits. When two people found the same hidden record on their own, that means something, and we weigh it that way.

  3. 03

    Your rules

    Your data is yours. We never sell it, we never share it with advertisers, and nobody sees more than you choose to show.

  4. 04

    People, not content

    We build for two people finding each other, not for time spent in the app. Fake profiles are against our rules, and reports are reviewed by people.

Who makes it

A small team of people who have built friendships around records.

TuneFirst is made by Shmuel Duan. Write to him at shmuel.duan@live.com.

Collectors, concert-goers, late-night playlist makers. People who have spent years getting to know others through the music they share. We built the place we wanted to exist.

For help with your account, write to support@tunefirst.com or use the contact form. Writing about TuneFirst? See the press page.

Most music apps connect you to content. TuneFirst connects you to people.

The one rule we build by

Keep reading
  1. 01FeaturesEverything TuneFirst does, in seven chaptersRead
  2. 02How it worksFrom sign-in to your first note, step by stepRead
  3. 03MatchingShared picks, rare picks, shared storiesRead
  4. 04FAQStraight answers to common questionsRead
  5. 05ContactWrite to the teamRead
Your turn

Come find your people.

Put a record on. TuneFirst is free, in any browser.

Open TuneFirst See every feature