Europe’s ability to grow online media startups as successful as America’s is coming under the microscope again. On FT.com, Mark Zaleski, founder of France-based YouTube wannabe Dailymotion, says: “We just assume that the next big thing on the internet must come out of America. People are starting to wonder why there aren’t those successful internet businesses in Europe.”

SEE ALSO: @ EconSM: Video Interview: Loic Le Meur, CEO, Seesmic: US Beats EU For Innovation

One of those people is author Martin Fransmann, whose November book The New ICT Ecosystem: Implications For Europe gets a late review also in FT.com today: “While there are a few European winners such as Nokia (NYSE: NOK) in mobile phones and SAP in software, and the occasional high-flyer such as Skype, there is nothing like the stream of new entrants that come out of the US.”

Seesmic founder and Le Web conference operator Loic Le Meur, who moved from home in Paris to San Francisco to start the enterprise, encapsulated reasons why an entrepreneur had to quit Europe in a video interview with us last week.