• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 9, 2007

Following months of development and preparation, MySpace plans to debut its first original series "quarterlife" this Sunday. Toyota has signed on the premiere--and will continue to be featured prominently on the "quarterlife" profile, along with in-stream advertising, for months to come.

Earlier this year, MySpace signed Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of "My So-Called Life" and "thirtysomething," to produce the new series--exclusively, at first, for MySpaceTV.

The Emmy-winning producers agreed to create 36 eight-minute episodes of "quarterlife," which focuses on six creative twentysomethings with tendencies toward highly revealing video blogging.

The deal represents an ongoing effort by MySpace--still the most popular social networking site online--to attract more ad dollars with sponsor-friendly programming.

"What MySpace has to deal with right now is a ton of inventory that advertisers don't find very useful," JupiterResearch analyst Emily Riley said in reference to the site's sea of member pages.

To foster the sort of inventory that any brand would love to sponsor, MySpace this summer launched MySpaceTV as a platform for longer-form and professionally produced content. Shortly after, it released the first episodes of "Afterworld," an original Web series produced by Santa Monica-based Electric Farm Entertainment.

Earlier this year, MySpace reached a deal to carry content from My Damn Channel, the digital production studio just launched by former MTV and CBS Radio executive Rob Barnett. My Damn Channel now has its own branded channel on MySpace and MySpaceTV, featuring original work from comedians like Andy Milonakis and Harry Shearer, filmmaker David Wain and music producer Don Was.

The success of MySpace's original content efforts has been spotty at best. For example, despite a $3 million budget, Afterworld had yet to surpass 500,000 views on MySpace by the fall. That stood in stark contrast to the more than 8 million views of "Prom Queen," which is produced by former Walt Disney head Michael Eisner's Tornante Co.

Still, online video remains a hot business. Three out of every four U.S. Web users viewed online clips in July, according to comScore, while they averaged three hours of viewing during the month.

Including YouTube streams, Google dominated the field with 2.5 billion in July--followed by Yahoo with 390 million streams, and MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media with 298 million streams that month.