For the longest time, the internet seemed but an intriguing kids' toy that made a lot of unknowns unnecessarily rich. 
    That all changed early yesterday morning when, to the surprise of all but a few insiders, America Online and Time Warner announced they were merging, in the biggest such deal in all history.
      It's a deal that will forever change the face of media, and in a number of ways.
      Here are a few:
       It immediately mainstreams the web. As of yesterday morning, the internet moved from downtown to uptown, becoming an equal partner with television, radio, print and outdoor in the mix of American and global media.
        The web is no longer an option. It's a necessity for advertisers, especially mainstream advertisers, to figure out how to use the web to reach consumers in innovative ways of a sort traditional media can't provide. 
      Throwing dollars at television, like so many darts against the wall, won't work anymore. Imagination, not dollars, will win the new marketing wars.
     The deal will put enormous pressure on other large media conglomerates to construct similar partnerships.
    And perhaps the most pressure will be on Disney, the world's second-largest media company after Time Warner. 
      Disney's internet efforts to date are a disaster and show no sign of improving. Reports show its Go Network, an umbrella group for such properties as ABC.com and ESPN.com, is spilling red ink. One analyst recently suggested that Disney consider breaking up its internet holdings, arguing that the parts were worth more than the whole because of their brand recognition.
    In short, Disney is having no more success constructing an internet presence than Time Warner had with its Pathfinder program. 
    Disney now must find a partner, and sooner rather than later. The alternative: Disney gets broken up, its parts worth more than the whole. In the new media age, size will no longer be a protector but a liability.
     The Time Warner deal will accelerate the development and acceptance of broadband services, whether by cable or high-end telephone services, such as DSL. Broadband means many things, from high-speed internet connections to the capacity for interactive TV. 
    But most of all broadband means the capacity to deliver streaming media, or full video, across the web.
    If we think of what's now on the web as radio, broadband is television. It will forever transform the web, once and for taking it out of the hands of techies and delivering it to consumers.
     But more important, perhaps, broadband will bring to the web the mainstream advertisers who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the web's technology to catch up with it promise.
     The Time Warner-AOL deal will force stand-alone new media companies at last to come to speak the language of the mainstream media marketplace. Those that persist in technobabble will face extinction, no matter how promising their technologies.
    Oddly, perhaps amusingly, the driving force will be AOL, a company that many new media companies have ridiculed for its button-down insistence on being accepted in the mainstream marketplace.
     The Time Warner-AOL deal will speed up the globalization of media like nobody's business. The web, unlike any traditional medium, is immediately accessible from any point in the world. It is therefore by definition global.
     What's changed is that we now have a content company, Time Warner, capable of filling the pipes with data and entertainment the wider world is ready for.