I have been getting calls from several PR agencies trying to get me to do a story on a new service for mobile phones. “Movies on you phone Steve, it will be huge!” So due to popular request, I will be happy to do a story on movies on your mobile phone.

Movies on mobile phones is without question one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.

While this is probably not the publicity the PR firms were gunning for it is nevertheless my take on movies on phones. There is not a single thing wrong with the concept, there are dozens of things wrong with it.

Where to begin? Screen size, battery life, connection speed, cost, battery life, screen quality, battery life, did I mention battery life?

Do these people who constantly add features to our phones realize that occasionally we want to use the phone to make or receive a phone call? To do that we need the battery to be out of the red, and all these additional activities, listening to music, taking photos and watching Men in Black Part 2 suck up battery life leaving little for making an receiving phone calls.

I am not against adding reasonable features to phones, I love the integration that RIM provides with the BlackBerry, Palm supplies on the Treo and Motorola on the Q, it makes sense to have your contacts, calendar and email on a phone. It doesn’t make near as much sense to have Forrest Gump on my phone. I love Tom Hanks, but he doesn’t belong on my phone. Where exactly do they think people are going to watch movies on their phones? In line at the grocery? That’s what National Inquirer is for, to amuse us in checkout lines. At the doctors office, or while waiting for the Bus? I really don’t see it.

The screen on most phones is tiny and awful, so I need to ask, who wants to watch movies on a miniature screen? While Apple has had some success with offering TV shows and a few movies on the iPod, the preponderance of the content has been TV shows. And the iPod screen is far superior to any phone I have seen. The iPod is an entertainment device, not a communications tool, if the battery dies so be it.

Movies on phones is just the latest attempt to entice us to use bandwidth, which the mobility carriers can charge us premiums for. They have so much invested in the cellular infrastructure that they need to continue to lead us down the rabbit hole trying to squeeze every nickel they can from their customer base. Ring tones, stupid games on the phone, cameras built in, all to try and coax as much cash as they can out of our accounts.

I can see the day when video on your phone will be a viable product, as an outgrowth of the Podcasting revolution, small video bites of information, sports, news, things that can be broken into 2 to 5 minute chunks. These missives are not going to be works of art, they are going to be information based, Martin Scorsese will not have a hand in the content you watch on your phone. You will only need a few minutes to view and benefit from the content, not several hours. Movies on phones, about as good an idea as Snakes on a Plane!