Invisibility is an odd goal to have. We're so used to shouting for attention that the idea of going wholly in the opposite direction feels plain wrong. But I think in some ways it's an interesting objective.
It's interesting for media. People don't think in channels, they think of content, and accessing that content whenever and wherever is convenient for them. So content needs to be enabled to move seamlessly across platforms so that it is easy to find, easy to interact with, easy to share. As soon as this is your starting point, it becomes increasingly irrelevant to think in terms of channels.
As what Faris calls the "modalities of media" continue to blur, it makes less and less sense for example, to talk about 'being online. Content becomes portable, unhinged from legacy devices, provisioned for every device.
So it is with technology:
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What Kevin Kelly talks about is technology so immersed in everyday life that it is ubiquitous, essential, but invisible. Like the alphabet.
So it's curious that whilst the notion of 'channels' disappears, context is taking on a whole new meaning. We've always had the where, the when and the how of media. Now we have a whole bunch more where, when and how, and a great big who. It's a point made nicely in this presentation by Helge Tennø :
"It's about people, and the stuff that happens between them."
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