Online video-sharing giant YouTube has had it's fair share of challengers for the title of most viewed video-sharing website. Now they must defend their title in Europe against the popular French site Daily Motion.

Daily Motion, a Paris-based online video-sharing site might be giving YouTube a run for it's money. The site receives upwards of 9, 000 new videos daily and are fast approaching the 16 million-viewer mark, giving them international recognition.

Daily Motion was actually created before YouTube and analysts say it should come as no surprise that there is room for the online video-sharing market in Europe. "Any country that has its own language is absolutely ripe for specialized content," says Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research in London. "There's a clear opportunity for the competition to steal a chunk of the French market." YouTube, which was acquired by Google only yesterday, wants to be the competitor to steal that chunk.

While there are several other European competitors such as Israel's Metacafe and Germany's MyVideo, Daily Motion has managed to pull ahead in terms of viewers in France with a reach of 10.3%. YouTube's reach is close on their heels with 9.1% reach despite the site's late release to the country. However, across all of Europe YouTube has the greater reach at about 11% while Daily Motion only has 2%.

Attempting to compete with YouTube, Daily Motion is making their content more locally based using local sporting events and politicians to gain views. Daily Motion is also allowing its users to upload content from their own webcams, which YouTube does not.

The site has even signed an agreement with leading French television station TF1 to develop a website called Wat TV, giving users the chance submit their videos to compete for a spot to be broadcast on TF1. YouTube currently has no agreements with television stations in any country to link the website and television stations.

Co-founder Benjamin Bejbaum revealed that he has even bigger plans for Daily Motion, stating, "Our strategy is totally international. We are closer to French content, but I want to see content from every country." The site can currently be viewed in six different languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Daily Motion would also like to extend it's reach to Asia but Piers Stobbs, a ComScore Europe analyst, says that will be difficult to do. "There's going to be scope for local sites," he says, "but certainly to get to a pan-European, pan-Asian level is going to be a challenge."

Online video-sharing site and social-networking site MySpace has also recently embarked on a global tour of Europe and Asia with the launch of sites in Germany and Japan. MySpace was a success in Germany, but Asia proved to extremely loyal to its already-existing video-sharing/social-networking site Mixi.

According to a study conducted by Alexa data, MySpace has garnered even more viewers across Europe than has YouTube, which beat Daily Motion. If online giant MySpace can not break through the barriers in Japan, does Daily Motion stand a chance?

Daily Motion, no doubt, will continue to strive for the highest number of European viewers, but for now they are no danger to YouTube in any country except France.

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