TechNewsWorld posted today about the “incredibly weak mobile Web experience” and asked “why mobile Web browsers are still so lame.” My answer: Today’s cell phones, with a few exceptions, are not information devices and should not be compared with the desktop experience.

I’d like to get away from the thinking that most of the cell phones today are information devices. They’re not. They’re phones that are Internet-enabled, so you can surf the Web.

I’d also like to get away from the thinking that the mobile Web experience should be like surfing the Web on our desktops or laptops. It’s not the same experience. It never will be. One is large, with at least a 12-inch display, and the other is tiny, with a match-book-sized screen.

What’s needed to improve the mobile Web experience, first and foremost, is a new cell phone that’s designed and development to meet the information — not just the phone — needs of an on-the-go society living in a broadband world. With the appropriate hardware, only then can we improve mobile browsing.

Two recent activities — the start of PayForIt in the U.K. and Google’s patent application for Gpay — suggest that mobile e-commerce is hot again.

The promise of paying for goods and services with a cell phone, both online and in the real world, has been around for years, especially in Japan and South Korea. But the cell-phone-as-a-digital-wallet concept just hasn’t taken off in the U.K., the U.S., and many other countries for a variety of reasons — paying by a cell phone still remains a clunky user experience and issues of trust and security are just two concerns.

That may be about to change.

Note: Gphone concept sketches by Lorin Wood.

If done right, the Gphone and not the iPhone will be the one to change the face of the wireless industry.

Apple’s iPhone, at least in its initial release, has not upended the wireless industry, particularly in the United States, as much as hoped. The iPhone certainly has pushed the cell phone envelope a bit further, and it hints at what’s to come, but so far the iPhone is still playing by the rules.

See also: Video: GPhone Android demonstration

Google, if it enters the fray as expected with its so-called Gphone, may truly rewrite the rules. What it plans to do is an ongoing topic of discussion and speculation on the Internet, not unlike Apple’s plans for the iPhone before its release at the end of June. The Gphone may be announced as early as next week and may debut as early as the first quarter of 2008. The anticipation will be as fervent as it was for the iPhone, without the Steve Jobs showmanship.