Content may be king, but it doesn’t sell cell phones.  That’s the lesson of ESPN Mobile, which the Wall Street Journal says will pull the plug on its disappointing cell phone adventure…possibly as early as today.

It reminds me of a lesson we learned in spades 12 years ago at Ziff-Davis Interactive/AT&T, when we built the Interchange Online Network…that content providers are better off building great services on top of leading channels, rather than trying to one-up them by forward-integrating into building the channels themselves.

I don’t look at this as an indictment of mobile video content or its future.  The only thing it means is that sports video is not a “killer app” that will sell ESPN cell phones the same way email sold Blackberries.