Mirror Mouthpiece includes a mixture of forums, net chats, product ratings, polls and blogs.
It has been developed on the back of the success of Mirror Group's 5,000-strong reader panel, which has run more than 100 surveys since 2003. These include client-specific surveys for advertisers such as Pedigree, Freeview and John Smiths.
Mouthpiece is linked directly to the Reader Panel and will allow for the first time interaction between the depth of quantitative panel data and the qualitative insight.
The online research community was created by Mirror Group's strategic planning team led by Suzy Jordan and Nicky Jones, in partnership with Market Evolution and online market research firm eDigital Research.
Richard Webb, Mirror Group's managing director, said: "The launch of Mouthpiece enables us to have a regular dialogue with our readers, putting them at the heart of what we do.
"Mouthpiece has already been used for advertiser projects and can give immediate insight and feedback on their campaigns."
One example of how it has been used is with the long-running campaign for the Food & Drink Federation, to promote awareness of guideline daily allowance food labelling.
Mirror Group monitored readers' awareness of the advertising and accompanying editorial content using their Reader Panel. Mirror Mouthpiece was then used to get "under the skin" of readers' relationships with food and the actions they take to keep themselves healthy.
The Reader Panel results showed that readers' usage of GDA labels increased by 19% over the campaign period and specific topic forums on Mouthpiece gave Mirror Group Advertising invaluable insight into why labelling was important to their readers.
Jane Holdsworth, GDA campaign director, said: "This isn't just about a label, it's about encouraging people to lead healthier lives. The results from the Mirror reader panel show that this activity struck exactly the right tone"