Social Networking Bewildered

I am stunned at the number of social networks that exist online these days. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tagged, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, ning networks, blogs, RSS feeds and more. Younger people navigate all this much more easily than I do but still I must learn. I keep hungering towards designing my business as automatic- and online-based. I can see that it is possible to streamline everything with technology BUT you need to understand how the technology works and, even more, how it fits together. If not, there's more work instead of less and the whole purpose of getting more done in less time is defeated. I am also going up against other, considerably more adept online business owners. Soon it will be easy. But today, it isn't.