The elevator door opens. And there stands your ideal investor. It’s the chance of a lifetime. But that chance only lasts as long as the elevator ride – you have less than a minute to make an impression. Hopefully, you’ve got a well-crafted elevator pitch ready to give.

The elevator pitch is not the hurried presentation of a full-blown business plan. It’s an introduction, an overview and a pitch – and a short one at that – meant to capture the attention of a potential investor. Of course, an elevator ride is a short one. Guides for elevator speeches that say you have one minute surely overestimate the amount of time it takes for an elevator to move from floor to floor. Of course, an elevator speech isn’t restricted to elevators. Rather, it comes in handy for any occasion where a concise presentation is appropriate.

When crafting your pitch there are two key things to keep in mind: its content and its form. In other words, it’s not just what you say but how you say it. Here are a 10 tips to keep in mind as you craft your elevator pitch.

1. Keep it short. Be succinct. According to Wikipedia, an adult’s attention span is eight seconds, so be sure to give just enough information (and more importantly perhaps the right information) so that after only hearing a sentence or two, someone knows what you do – and if it’s a pitch, what you need.

2. Have a hook. As Mel Pirchesky advises, “The objective of the first ten or fifteen seconds is to have your prospective investors want to listen to the next forty-five or fifty seconds differently, more intently than they would have otherwise.”

3. Pitch yourself, not your ideas. As Chris Dixon writes, “The reality is ideas don’t matter that much. First of all, in almost all startups, the idea changes – often dramatically – over time. Secondly, ideas are relatively abundant.” Instead of talking about ideas, highlight what you’ve done – the concrete accomplishments or skills – rather than some intangible concept or a future goal.

4. Don’t forget the pitch. It’s easy to get so caught up in the details of who you are that you neglect to mention what you need. What amount of financing are you seeking, for example?

5. Don’t overwhelm with technical or statistical terminology. While being able to tout one or two amazing and memorable phrases or figures can be useful, don’t fill your elevator speech with numbers or jargon.

6. Practice. Rehearse your elevator pitch so that when the opportunity to give it comes, you can deliver it smoothly.

7. Use the same tactics for print. You can hone your elevator skills by practicing them in writing. Babak Nivi describes the email elevator pitch here.

8. Revise. As your startup moves through various stages, be sure to update and refresh your pitch.

9. Be involved in the startup community before you pitch. Business Insider suggests “Engaging in online discussions, writing insightful blog posts, and participating in the relatively small startup community can earn you a ‘strong presence’ that gets you noticed by potential investors.” Building relationships with investors before pitching to them will help your success.

10. Listen. When seeking to build strong networks, remember it can be just as important to listen as it is to talk.

Do you have any other suggestions on crafting an elevator pitch? Feel free to add your tips in the comments below.

News from Cupertino, California this morning has Apple fans in a tizzy: the “magical and revolutionary” (yes, that’s really how Apple describes it) iPad now has a confirmed launch date. According to an Apple press release, the iPad will be available in the U.S. on Saturday, April 3rd in Wi-Fi only models and later that month in 3G. Also by month-end, all editions of the iPad will become available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. Pre-orders will start March 12th on www.apple.com.

Although we know that many people are already confirmed buyers, there are a lot of fence-sitters out there still wondering why they need an iPad when they already have an iPhone (or iPod Touch, or netbook, or laptop, etc.). If that’s you, we’ve come up with a list of confirmed iPad apps that may convince you otherwise.

1) The New York Times

No surprise here. The NY Times was actually one of the applications demonstrated during the iPad announcement in January. Their native application lets you save stories, watch video, zoom in and out on photos and virtually “flip” through the paper without dirtying up your fingers with newsprint. The news stories are updated whenever the device has an internet connection.

2) The Wall St. Journal

We haven’t seen it in action yet, but News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch has apparently been telling people that there’s an iPad under lock-and-key in the WSJ’s building. “We’ve been allowed to work on one,” he told members of the Real Estate Board of New York during a luncheon this past week. We imagine its features will be very much on par with those in the NY Times app, as described above.

3) Need for Speed Shift (Game)

The iPad represents a whole new gaming platform. It’s a handheld device like the iPhone, but one with a much larger screen. That means video games will look great – more like games you play on your TV via game consoles like the Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii. Electronic Arts is one of the first to develop for the iPad and their “Need for Speed Shift” racing game, also demoed during Apple’s announcement, has been redesigned from the iPhone version into one just for the iPad. They’ve scaled up the images to fit the larger screen and the results, from what we’ve seen so far, look great.

4) Penguin Books

Penguin CEO John Makinson spoke to a London audience this past week about his company’s plans to build iPad-ready books. Instead of releasing text-only publications, Penguin books will be more like apps including embedded video, audio and streaming. “The .ePub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text,” said Makinson, “but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about. So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs.”

5) Condé Nast Magazines: Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Glamour

Enjoy magazines but hate how they clutter up your house? That will never be a problem again thanks to the iPad. According to the NY Times, the large publishing firm has big plans for their periodicals. GQ will have a tablet version of its April issue ready. Vanity Fair and Wired will follow with their June issues, and The New Yorker and Glamour will have issues in the summer. Already, the company’s iPhone application for GQ that proves Condé Nast gets how to develop for new platforms. The GQ app is not a simple digitized magazine, but includes features that embrace the mobile web. For example, you can tap through on an ad to go to a company’s website or tap a song in a music review to download it.

Wired, specifically, gave us all a look at their iPad app earlier this month and it’s incredible. Although they actually called it their “tablet” app – Wired isn’t limiting themselves to one platform – we know one of the first places we’ll see it is Apple’s new slate device.

6) Your Student Newspaper

In addition to the big names like the NY Times and WSJ, colleges will also begin to use the iPad for distributing their highly localized news. One college, Abilene Christian University, has already confirmed they’ve developed an app for their paper, “The Optimist.” “We want to be up and running and there when they’re ready for us,” said Professor Kenneth Pybus. You can bet they won’t be the last college to launch for iPad, either.

7) Disney iPad Apps

Walt Disney’s Robert Iger recently informed investors that Disney will develop all sorts of iPad applications that will range from games to digital books and who knows what else? “We find that the iPad has a lot of potential. We think it’s a really compelling device,” he said. Iger also predicts that the iPad will be “a game-changer in terms of enabling us to create essentially new forms of content.” We can’t wait to see what the creatives at Disney come up with.

Also of note: Disney owns Marvel Comics and that has some speculating that comic book apps are on the list of soon-to-arrive Disney iPad apps.

iPhone Apps, Transformed

Although iPhone apps will work on the iPad without any updates required, developers who want to redesign their iPhone apps specifically for the iPad can do so.

For an example of how great these will look when they do this, check out 1Password. Already available as an iPhone app, this app helps you create strong passwords for web services and accounts, remembers them for you and stores them right in your browser. Their iPad app, shown off on their blog here, shows just how attractive - oh, we’ll say it – just downright gorgeous – iPad apps will be.

Not one to mince words, Steve Jobs squashed all hope of the iPad supporting iPhone tethering for wireless internet access with one word – “No.”

The succinct answer was communicated by Jobs via email (from his iPhone) to Jezper Söderlund of Sweden who emailed Jobs to ask, “Will the wifi-only version somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?”

9to5Mac has both emails in question, along with email header information, and all indications point to the one word buzz-kill response being legit. You can read the text of the email inquiry and Jobs’ response below:

Söderlund’s email:

I’ll keep it short.

I’m Jezper from Sweden, a long time Apple fan, currently about to replace the very last computer at home with a brand spanking new iMac i7. I’m also awaiting the release of the iPad. However, I have one question:

Will the wifi-only version somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?

Two devices, based on the same OS, with already built-in technology to share one data plan suggests a secondary contract could possibly be redundant.

From the look of your keynote, where the iPad sits well between my MacBook Pro and my iPhone, I was hoping the three of them could interact as seamless as possible.

All the best,
Jezper Söderlund[a famous DJ in his own right]

Jobs’ response:

No.

Sent from my iPhone

The bottom line is that those of you who were hoping to buy the cheaper WiFi version of the iPad and tether your iPhone for 3G Internet access (and avoid the additional 3G hardware costs and AT&T; subscription plan) are out of luck.

From a consumer perspective, the news is quite disappointing. One would hope that the costly iPhone data plan would be applicable to the iPad. The idea of paying a per device monthly wireless Internet fee is one that won’t sit well with most consumers. The decision doesn’t exactly come as a surprise though. We already know that AT&T; is facing network challenges, which they blame on heavy iPhone users, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to encourage or support additional bandwidth without additional fees.

Tags: Apple iPad, Apple Tablet, att, iphone tethering, steve jobs

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Now that the dust has settled and we know what the Apple iPad is, many people have begun trying to answer the question, “How can I justify spending the money to get one of these things?” There is certainly no denying that the iPad is a very cool looking device, but as a small business owner, do you really need one? And what about netbooks? Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims that the new iPad fills a niche for which netbooks were failing to deliver, but is that really true for business users?

Here, then, are reasons why you should go out and buy an iPad as soon as they’re available, and reasons why you shouldn’t.

Why You Need One

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There are many reasons why small business owners could justify purchasing an Apple iPad. Though clearly aimed at casual users and touted primarily for couch web surfing and multimedia consumption, the iPad also has plenty of potential business uses. By creating a special iPad optimized edition of iWork, Apple’s productivity suite, Apple also clearly sees the iPad’s business potential. Their ultra-competitive announced price of just $9.99 for the app indicates that Apple plans to aggressively court business users, even if that is not necessarily their core customer.

Essentially, the iPad is a big iPod touch that in theory provides a better typing experience (by virtue of its larger onscreen keyboard). Because the iPad will run any of the 140,000 iPhone/iPod apps right out of the box, any business use you already have for your iPod touch or iPhone (except making phone calls) will be available to you on the iPad – but bigger. With that in mind, the iPad could certainly become an asset to sales people who make presentations on the road (what’s more impressive – clicking through PowerPoint slides or manipulating product demos and data visualizations with your fingers?) or anyone who needs to easily monitor core business functions (server health, web site traffic stats, sales indicators, financial numbers, etc.) from the road using a relatively cheap and compact device.

Why You Don’t

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What the iPad isn’t, however, is a replacement for your desktop or laptop computer. There are many features missing from the iPad, but two in particular could be deal breakers for serious small business users.

First, the iPad lacks a standard USB port. There will almost certainly be aftermarket accessories available to add USB support to the tablet, but the bottom line is that using the USB devices you already own, such as memory sticks and external hard drives, will not be easy or even possible with the iPad out of the box.

Second, and more egregious, the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, currently lacks the ability to multitask. For Apple’s apparent target consumer – users who will use the iPad for casual web surfing, to watch movies, and to play games – not being able to run more than one program at the same time isn’t likely a big deal. But for business users, that’s a major setback. If you’re putting together a presentation or writing up a sales report, you need the ability to be able to refer to a web page or data locked in some other application while you work. For that reason alone, the iPad in its current form is not an ideal business machine.

What About Netbooks?

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For about half the price of an iPad you could buy a very capable netbook (some come even cheaper when subsidized by a 3G data plan subscription). According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, “netbooks aren’t better at anything.” But in many ways, a $299 netbook outshines the $499 iPad, especially for business users. If what you’re after is a machine that offers extreme portability and business critical features for a low price, a netbook might be a better option.

Netbooks have a number of advantages over the iPad. They multitask, they often have cameras (for video conferencing), they can generally run Windows (meaning they run Microsoft Office and Outlook), they support an open software ecosystem (meaning more choice and the ability to easily custom develop and deploy software for your organization), and they have standard ports and inputs. While they can’t match the iPad for cool factor, as far as business functionality, netbooks pack a lot of bang for the buck.

So which should you buy? That will come down to what type of device you need and its intended use. The iPad, however, is not a must-have purchase for all small business owners – at least, not in its first generation.

More business resources from Mashable:

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- How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans
– Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right
– HOW TO: Take Advantage of Social Media in Your E-mail Marketing
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Tags: apple, Apple Tablet, business, ipad, iphone, iwork, small business

We recently previewed the upcoming put.io cloud storage service which fetches media files and lets you stream them immediately.

The service has created a lot of buzz, because it’s able to keep redundant copies of your files which you can access from anywhere with a browser, including files for the iPhone and PS3.

These can be fetched automatically from bittorrent networks, FTPs, direct download links, Rapidshare links or basic http authenticated links. And you can stream your downloaded files instantly with an appropriate player. For example, Divx Web Player for DivX files. Cleary it has the potential to create something of a media storm.

Digg founder Kevin Rose launched a side project called WeFollow, a Twitter directory, earlier this year. Twitter users can go to the site and add themselves under a specific category. Without much in the way of marketing, the site has grown to 654,000 Twitter users, all of which went to the site and added themselves. And now, someone with knowledge of the deal tells us, Rose has transferred WeFollow ownership to Digg.

This wasn’t exactly an acquisition, though, because Digg didn’t pay anything for the site. “The data became very useful for Digg,” says our source, and it was awkward keeping it outside of the company.

Digg has long been planning to launch a more real time version of the site, and we’ve speculated that Digg will soon surface new top stories based at least partially on stuff becoming popular on Twitter and other similar services. WeFollow gives Digg data on who the top Twitter users are for various categories.

WeFollow Relaunch:

WeFollow is also changing the way it ranks users. Currently it’s based only on total follower counts on Twitter. In the next day or so, though, WeFollow will change its algorithm and give more weight to users who tag themselves properly, and then have followers who have also tagged themselves similarly. For examply, if TechCrunch is tagged “startups” and a lot of people following TechCrunch have also tagged themselves startups, that gives a lot more weight to our account in that category. This goal is to reduce spam and give better data.

Below are screenshots of the new, yet to be launched service. The top shows the SEO tag by number of followers, the current way WeFollow ranks users. The bottom shows ranking by influence. Matt Cutts jumps to the top of the list, even though he’s only no. 8 in overall followers.