Social Networking

My brother wants an iphone, so naturally, I am on the look out for one. I came across this article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/

on the BBC I was chuffed, its nearly £100 cheaper, so I was counting the days until it was released here, so I could get it for him.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked on something called friend feed and found this mirad of social networking sites!
http://friendfeed.com/about/

Where did they all come from? There is even a place called Vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/
which seems to be a rival to youtube, are they mad?