In a gray bunker of a building with a graveyard as its neighbor, a freshly hired strike force of Net executives, programmers and advertising representatives is mounting a grand mission to take on a global behemoth: Google’s YouTube.

that is the new universal headquarters of Dailymotion, an online video-sharing company, in the north of Paris. In the sprawling landscape of Web video sites, Dailymotion ranks a distant second, according to figures from the Net audience tracking company ComScore. But in France, it has managed to pull ahead of YouTube, the only competitor that has managed to do so in any major market. That success has encouraged Dailymotion to expand in other places, including the United States and Britain.

“YouTube is the dominant player and other players are quite distant, but Dailymotion is the one player that has been able to counter that trend,” said Piers Stobbs, vice president for marketing at ComScore.

Fueled by the spread

of broadband, video is one of the fastest-growing areas on the Net, with “Internet television” services like Joost and Babelgum, video-sharing sites like YouTube and Dailymotion, and video sites from traditional broadcasters all competing for audiences. Investment is driven by the prospect of new revenue from advertising and product placement, even whether hopes have so far mostly gone unfulfilled. With more than 80 percent of World Wide Web users viewing online video in Britain, France and Germany, Europe has emerged as an urgent battleground.

YouTube, which Google bought for $1.65 billion in 2006, and Dailymotion are locked in a fierce struggle for market leadership in France. Dailymotion overtook YouTube in February, with 10.2 million rare visitors, compared with 8.8 million for YouTube, according to Nielsen, another audience tracking service. But worldwide, YouTube remains the Godzilla of video-sharing sites, with 258 million different visitors in January, compared with 32 million for…

Orginal post by Top Tech News