First there were TV-like shows on the Internet: “LonelyGirl 15”. Then came big-name backers upping the quality ante: Michael Eisner’s “Prom Queen.” Now we’re seeing the creative professionals of TV Land and Hollywood getting into the mix.

MySpaceTV has teamed up with Seventeen, the teen-ager magazine, to produce a new Web series, “Freshman 15”, which launched this week. “Freshman 15” is a reality show that follows 15 girls as they experience college life for the first time.

And in November, two big-time movie and TV producers will debut an original series, “Quarterlife”, also on MySpaceTV. Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick have made films like “Blood Diamond” and “The Last Samurai” and television series such as “thirtysomething” and “My So Called Life.”

Americans are watching more streaming online video than ever and the big winner continues to be Google-owned YouTube.

The comScore Video Metrix report for July 2007 — which looked at the usage of streaming video sites only — reveals that nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched videos online, up from 71.4 percent in March, and the average viewing time per-month was just under three hours.

Google-owned video sites (which basically means YouTube) lead in terms of unique viewers, grabbing 37.6% of the market (67.8 million), with Fox Interactive in second place with 19.9% (35.8 million) and Yahoo! Sites a close third with 19.6% (35.3 million).

While it’s yet-to-be confirmed, TechCrunch reports that News Corp. and NBC’s joint venture, Hulu, has made its first acquisition: Bejing-based startup Mojiti. It’s thought that Mojiti, an online video platform that enables users to annotate videos at specific time points (while also forming the basis for search functionality) will provide a part of the technology used to power Hulu. Mojiti founder, Eric Feng, was previously at Microsoft Research Asia.

TechCrunch editor, Mike Arrington, expresses surprise that Hulu would go outside for some of its core technology, while conceding that, having missed their previously announced launch date of summer 2007, an acquisition could get things back on track.

Veoh, the company behind the video sharing site of the same name, as well as the Internet TV app, VoehTV (see our review), have announced a new set of funders. Joining ex-Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, along with Shelter Capital Partners, Spark Capital, and Time Warner Investments, Veoh’s backers now also include former Viacom and MTV Networks CEO Tom Freston’s Firefly3 and Jonathan Dolgen, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom Entertainment Group.

That’s a pretty heavyweight media lineup, with plenty of Hollowood/TV network connections, which, moving forward, is likely to be a prerequisite for companies in the Internet TV space whose success will in part be based on their ability to secure major content deals. In this respect, VeohTV competitor, Joost, looks particularly well placed with backing from CBS and Viacom.

The good news: Major U.S. television networks continue to embrace Internet technology and are putting their shows on the Web for online viewing, just like they did last year.

The bad news: Their online offerings remain sporadic; their Internet strategies feel like “we have to” rather than “we want to”; and — worst of all — they still haven’t embraced the idea that we are living in a new digital world, with different rules, participants, and expectations all around.

We’ve looked at the online offerings of the five major networks — ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and The CW — and sadly no one is blowing the game wide open, although they’re trying. To their credit, the networks are offering some of their top-rated shows online, viewable on their own websites.

But to their discredit, the networks don’t provide streaming for all of their shows, prime time or not, and streaming schedules vary widely. While video quality continues to improve, many networks have crowded and difficult to use interfaces, which detracts from the fun of watching a favorite TV show. Sometimes it’s just not worth the effort.

Here’s our journey through the land of network streaming.