Turning viewers or readers into active participants in a story is not a new concept. Growing up, I devoured choose-your-own-adventure style books. But the Web brings new life to this idea, not just from a technical point of view but also from the audience’s point of view. The wide acceptance of social networking has created an audience that is used to sharing photos, videos and other personal information with friends and strangers.

Take180.com is one site exploring what all of this can mean for a Web-only show. Take180 relies upon their online community for content. Viewers respond to “challenges,” which request anything from photos to webcam-recorded answers to a question. The community then votes on the top submissions and those become integrated into the next episode. Under this formula, the community members essentially power the shows, giving them the chance to actually alter the course of a story entirely.

Tilzy.TV caught up with writers from two of Take180’s shows, My Alibi and In2ition. Here’s what they had to say about creating content in this manner and some of the challenges that go along with it.