France’s Dailymotion Finds Stateside Tech Partner In Video Editing Service Givit

In other video news this week, the video editing app Givit has announced its integration with the social video site Dailymotion. It is the first U.S. app to be built into the France-based Dailymotion’s API.

This comes after news in late April that the French government struck down Yahoo’s bid for a $200 million majority stake in Dailymotion in order to prevent a U.S. company from taking a controlling stake in one of France’s leading technology companies. Carrier France Telecom / Orange has put between 50 and 60 million Euro into Dailymotion as it waits for someone else to bite.

The Yahoo shutdown sent a bad message to the French marketplace and to foreign investors. This Givit integration is a way for Dailymotion to reach out to U.S. partners from a different angle, tech, while growing their American user base.

When I spoke with Dailymotion’s US Managing Director Roland Hamilton and Givit CEO Greg Kostello today, the two emphasized the commonality of their platforms with respect to fostering creative communities. Givit allows users to stitch together videos of any length, add music and special effects, and “give it” away on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Hamilton called Dailymotion a “young, hip community” that supports independent filmmakers.

This is really a push by Dailymotion to scale up stateside and is especially strategic given recent grumblings from YouTube creators about the site’s revenue shares.

“Dailymotion is becoming a true alternative to YouTube,” said Hamilton. “From articles over the last few weeks, people are looking for another platform, and we want to be there.”

Dailymotion has a public API, and it’s looking for more U.S. mobile and social developers to tap into it. The site, which is the second largest social video site globally after YouTube, is currently reporting 20 million unique monthly visitors for the U.S. versus 112 million globally although a spokesman would not give numbers on Givit’s traction. Even though the Yahoo deal fell through, it seems Dailymotion is still fighting for a bigger toe-hold in the U.S. video scene.