Jonah Bloom’s column in Ad Age makes an important point, commenting on how the Net changes, and not just replaces traditional media and marketing. He is right. Convergence and Search are like two big tornadoes touching down on media and marketing.

He did not deal with the shift to mobile, however, which is not a separate tornado, but one that will define the path it takes.

Speaking of mobile, I listened to a Deloitte podcast this morning about Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) where they talk of how digitization and fragmentation are forcing marketers to realize that they "need to to live where your customers are" –even if it means creating their own media space via a virtual network. Sainsbury’s, the grocery store in the UK, for instance has Sainsbury’s Mobile that is more than a pre-paid phone; it is there to drive store traffic, they point out.

Mobile devices, likewise will change the way other media operate, and how marketers and customers connect with each other. Why sink a few hundred thousand dollars to put up your ad on network TV, when you can host it for afraction of the cost on a server, and get people to stream it to their mobile phone? Not that television hasn’t thought about this already. Ever heard of the ESPN mobile phone? Another MVNO. Their line, ‘Life will never get in the way of your sports again" should be translated (for media and advertising types) as "distribution should never get in the way of your content again."

This is Friedman’s flat-earth theory, with media ramifications.