Dailymotion ready to invade US, thrown down with YouTube

Online video site Dailymotion has set its sights on the U.S. video market, and wants to steal YouTube market share by launching original content to woo viewers.

In the first mini-series, Super chef Mario Batali will host fives episodes in which he speaks with musicians he is a personal fan of. Each episode will be 22 minutes in length and is a major gamble on Dailymotion's part, though was the brainchild of analytics that indicate many viewers enjoy music and cooking videos.

"It's our particular goal to package and distribute our own original IP that captivates and engages our existing community of over 127M global viewers season after season," said Roland Hamilton, Dailymotion US Managing Director, in a press statement. "We believe having original and exclusive content is a great way to differentiate so we're looking for interesting projects - passion projects from extraordinary people that deserved to get made, much like Mario's 'Feedback Kitchen'."

Trying to launch original content for the U.S. market is risky, though Dailymotion is currently the No. 5 video site in the U.S., greatly trailing YouTube and Netflix.

Yahoo appeared ready to acquire Dailymotion last year - but the deal fell through - so now the European video site needed to adjust its strategy to reach more US viewers.