Immigration reform has to get done.

That’s why Murdoch and Bloomberg joined together to create The March for Innovation, or iMarch, an online forum that includes Twitter town halls and pressure from citizens through social media to get politicians to hear their voices in support of immigration reform. The president’s campaign apparatus, reconfigured as Organizing for Action, is supporting iMarch as well as the former California governor.

Supporters took to Twitter Wednesday to announce the launch of iMarch.

RT if you agree: This is not just a debate about policy—it’s about people. #iMarch #ImmigrationNation, twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) May 22, 2013

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) May 22, 2013

This is my first-ever Vine message. Here’s some reasons I support comprehensive immigration reform: vine.co/v/b9wYdjXi7Pn #iMarch

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) May 22, 2013

Be part of this historic movement and join the virtual march for immigration reform. #imarch #immigration twitter.com/luisfortuno51/…

— Luis Fortuño (@luisfortuno51) May 22, 2013

Immigration reform has seen a largely bipartisan push as the so-called Gang of 8 senators crafted legislation that was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and now heads to a vote from the full Senate.

Asked why immigration reform is seeing a push that has even surpassed the McCain-Kennedy effort from 2007, longtime reform supporter Rep. Luis Gutierrez says the reason is clear.

RELATED: Analysis: Can the House torpedo immigration reform?

“November 6th — there was an election — and clearly there was a mandate of the people and the Congress, unlike on guns and when it comes to the budget and unlike so many other issues, is being responsive,” Gutierrez said on HuffPost Live, Wednesday.

AOL co-founder Steve Case, who has testified in front of Congress as well as Steve Jobs’ widow also added to the chorus of politicians pushing for reform on Twitter.

MY VIEW: Don’t Let Top Talent Leave the U.S. on.mash.to/12ui8RO #Immigration Join us! #iMarch And please RT!

— Steve Case (@SteveCase) May 22, 2013

Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist who came out as undocumented in a New York Times article, and has emerged as a passionate advocate for immigration reform, announced that he will use Reddit’s popular “Ask me anything” feature to bring attention to iMarch.

I’m doing @reddit #AMA at 4p ET for #Marchforinnov. Come and ask hard questions about #immigration and @defineamerican #iMarch

— Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) May 22, 2013

Creators of the iMarch campaign are banking on Americans to use social media to pressure politicians to support reform and as of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 12,000 “actions” had been taken on Facebook and Twitter to push for immigration reform.

“Yahoo has a very recent history of mismanagement, and I think it’s a pretty typical case of a dying brand buying a ‘cooler’ one to revive itself,” said Tumblr user Abel Iraola, who works in Congress.

“If they play it like Google with YouTube and make changes gradually, this is a partnership that could work out; if Yahoo goes all out to monetize Tumblr, adding ads, charging a premium for certain features, and going out of its way to block gifs, clips, and music for legal purposes (which form the backbone of the community), then it will find itself undergoing an exodus very fast.”

In a statement posted to her own Tumblr blog, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said Yahoo isn’t looking to wield a heavy hand. “We promise not to screw it up,” she wrote. “Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.  We will operate Tumblr independently.  David Karp will remain CEO.  The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.”

RELATED: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveils pro-immigration advocacy group

Dee Trillo, a fashion blogger who uses Yahoo and Tumblr, says the partnership can be beneficial for both, because Yahoo will use its resources to help expedite improvements to the Tumblr interface while Yahoo will be able to reinvent itself in the social media space.

“They have been the outcast and this might be their chance to target a major audience via a powerful player as Tumblr,” she says.

Monica Vila, The Online Mom founder and NBC Latino contributor, says the move is a great one for Yahoo.

“When I first heard about this acquisition – I thought it was a brilliant business move on the part of Yahoo,” she says. “For a while and more since Marissa Mayer took over the helm – I couldn’t help but think that its aging community was a giant threat to its growth. Tumblr brings millennials and an increasingly savvy mobile user base – both of which are so important to the future of Yahoo.”

Karla Campos, who runs a social media marketing agency, says that as  Tumblr user, she thinks the acquisition will be OK as long as Yahoo doesn’t overreach.

“I think it is a good thing that Yahoo purchased Tumblr, hopefully they don’t start messing too much with the interface,” she says. “I think they should leave the user experience as is but add features. The article I read talked about new advertising opportunities that will develop with the buy which I think is good because people are always looking for ways to monetize their blogs.”

Jessie Nuez, a tech blogger and founder of The Wired Family, says too many people have been hitting Yahoo’s Mayer, formerly of Google, when they should be looking at what she brings to the table.

“I think people need to separate Marissa Mayer from Yahoo and see what she has accomplished in her career. As a former product manager, Marissa Mayer knows what it takes to create, build and grow a successful product and drive individuals to create their best work; just look at all that she accomplished at Google,” she says.

“Yahoo isn’t dead, it has lost its way and needs someone to steer them in the direction of continued success,” she adds.

RELATED: Bill Gates takes back World’s Richest Man title from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim

The group looked at geotagged Tweets from June 2012 to April 2013 and students at Humboldt State University manually read and identified the sentiment of each tweet to determine if a specific word was used in a positive, negative or neutral way. Altogether 150,000 tweets were found to be negative.

Floating Sheep looked for the use of words like “wetback” and “spic” to analyze negative racial sentiment aimed at Hispanics or immigrants, with the former being the slur that was used by most users out of the two.

RELATED: Heritage immigration study co-author: Latinos incapable of assimilating like Irish, Sicilians

“Ultimately, this term is used most in different areas of Texas, showing the state’s centrality to debates about immigration in the U.S.,” the authors wrote in a blog post. “But the areas with significant concentrations aren’t necessarily that close to the border, and neither do other border states who feature prominently in debates about immigration contain significant concentrations.”

The map also looked at the use of the most infamous racial slur aimed at blacks, the so-called “n-word,” and found a picture more troubling than any of the other words analyzed.

“[It's] not concentrated in any single place or region in the United States; instead, quite depressingly, there are a number of pockets of concentration that demonstrate heavy usage of the word,” the academics wrote, adding that in addition to looking at the density of hateful words, they also examined how many unique users were tweeting these words.

“For example in the Quad Cities (East Iowa) 31 unique Twitter users tweeted the [n-word] in a hateful way 41 times,” they added. “There are two likely reasons for higher proportion of such slurs in rural areas: demographic differences and differing social practices with regard to the use of Twitter.”

The Floating Sheep concluded by saying that some of the slurs included in the analysis may not lead to clear conclusions to draw, “but, unfortunately, they show the significant persistence of hatred in the United States and the ways that the open platforms of social media have been adopted and appropriated to allow for these ideas to be propagated.”

RELATED: Social media raises concern about Disney trademark

“Wealth creation, tech innovation, risk taking – none of these things are associated with Latino identity,” says Rodriguez. “Yet not only are we here, but we are beginning to organize and we are starting an ecosystem,” explains Rodriguez, who wrote on the topic for Forbes and spoke to NBC Latino from the Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit (SVLLS).

One of the goals of this meeting, which took place Saturday at Stanford University, was to galvanize and join different Latino technology groups with business, civic and political leaders to harness the resources and clout to make a difference.

“Whether it’s providing more seed money for new startups or organizations, or creating more mentorship opportunities and expanding diversity, you need a rich ecosystem that may not have been connected otherwise,” Rodriguez says.

In its fourth year, the Summit brought together technology entrepreneurs such as Hispanic Net and Silicon Valley Latino with civic and government leaders such as NALEO’s Arturo Vargas and Henry Cisneros and Latinos in corporate America such as Walmart Board Member and former Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration Aida Alvarez, who won the SVLLS Lifetime Achievement Award.

The topics for discussion included everything from the importance of educating Latino youth and getting more of them in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields to Latinos in business and technology, and even comprehensive immigration reform.

On immigration, Latinos in Silicon Valley have a dual perspective — many back reform for the increase in high-tech visas and the ability to bring in more skilled workers, but many Hispanics are also immigrants themselves.

Rodriguez says the growing presence and joining of forces of Latinos in Silicon Valley is not only a source of pride, but a shared opportunity.

“We see technology as the one of the engines of the new economy,” says Rodriguez.  ”That, plus the fact that we will be one-third of the U.S. population soon, and it’s clear Latinos have a special responsibility to take care of their own,” he says.  Rodriguez says Silicon Valley is a true melting pot — and Hispanics are an integral part.

Yet eCards are completely different! In this day and age, I believe they have the power to brighten someone’s day and provide the immediate delivery that our busy lives require.  Here are some of my favorites for Mother’s Day:

Paperless Post

I recently used Paperless Post to organize a 25th wedding anniversary for my best friend. The site is so tastefully designed; I love to browse through so many of their options. Their Mother’s Day collection is great and this is the one I chose for my mom this year. (Mother’s Day in Mexico is always on May 10 and I tend to forget while living here!)

HDgreetings

As the name implies, this service allows you to create high-quality, high-definition eCards. Each one can be personalized and can include a photo that appears with your custom message at the end of the video. You can use create your own video and integrate it into the card. Try it, it’s brilliant! But be careful on how you choose, as some eCards on HDgreetings are free and some are not.

Care2

If you and your mom believe in contributing to the world around you, then Care2 is definitely a great choice. Care2 donates a percentage of their advertising revenue to non-profit organizations. Even by simply visiting the site to create and send your Mother’s Day eCard, you are helping generate funds for green and sustainability programs.

Punchbowl

Here’s a service that provides the opportunity to do both paper and eCards – Punchbowl is very popular as they provide hundreds of designs that are free and like some of the others, you can also customize liners and postage to give them your own personal touch.

Hipster Cards

I honestly love this site because it is perfect for so many of my eCard worthy friends and family.  They definitely offer cards with a sense of humor and it could be perfect for your mom,(i.e. “Mom you are still a Mad Charmer”!). Hipster Cards is constantly updating designs and they are most definitely a highly-liked destination for teens. I am half expecting one tomorrow from my own!

123Greetings.com

This service is a lifesaver if you tend to forget dates, as it has a reminder feature! I especially like the advanced editor on 123Greetings.com and like many of the others, you can use it for invitations for that special event (graduation, First Communion and more).

Monica Vila is “Chief Technology Mom,” born and raised in Mexico and co-founder of The Online Mom, the market leader in providing online and off-line tools to make parents of kids K-12 smarter and more comfortable with the technology that touches their family. The Online Mom is a website, an online newsletter, a forum for discussion, a network of certified experts and a social community devoted to promoting a healthy understanding and appreciation for the positive role technology can play in a family’s life.

The trademark was for an animated movie by Disney and Pixar Animation Studios Inc. that is inspired by the holiday.

The Los Angeles-based humorist created a movie poster that quickly went viral of a skeletal Godzilla-sized Mickey Mouse, with the words: “It’s coming to trademark your cultura (culture).”

Anger and ridicule expressed on social media largely by Latinos began circulating. On Tuesday, Disney said it was no longer seeking a “Dia de los Muertos” trademark request because the film’s name will change before its release.

“Disney’s trademark filing was intended to protect any potential title for our film and related activities,” a company statement said. “It has since been determined that the title of the film will change.”

Disney has not said that social media responses were responsible for the withdrawn trademark request. The company did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press.

RELATED: Disney drops bid to trademark Dia de los Muertos name

Whatever the reason, the episode showed how quickly reactions to even the smallest corporate move can spread online and lead to calls for boycotts.

“It was not social media that started this. It was Disney that started this,” said Tom Garrity, head of the Garrity Group, a public relations firm that advises companies on social media practices. “Social media only highlight the deficiencies in Disney’s planning and what people saw as cultural insensitivity.”

The Disney request momentarily replaced immigration as the hottest topic among Latinos on Twitter, said Elainne Ramos, vice chair of LATISM, a nonprofit group Latino social media group. She noticed the trend by monitoring posts on Twitter and had planned a live tweet town hall until the trademark request was withdrawn.

“Some people saw it as an attempt to own our culture and profit from it,” she said.

Critics said they were concerned about the company attempt to trademark a cultural holiday like November’s Day of the Dead and its history of trying to profit from cultural icons.

“This is a corporation that has consistently co-opted culture for profit,” said Andrea Quijada, executive director of the Albuquerque-based Media Literacy Project, a group that focuses on media literacy and policy. “Just look at Pocahontas, Mulan, Jasmine,” Quijada said, referring to characters from Disney films.

Not only was the move seen as insensitive, critics said, trademarking the popular holiday put thousands of businesses that made products linked to the day at risk. Disney had hoped to secure the naming rights for merchandise such as snack foods and Christmas ornaments.

“It’s a terrible idea. I’m outraged,” said Kiko Torres, owner of Masks y Mas in Albuquerque, a shop that sells Day of the Dead art and clothing year-round. “I mean, what’s the purpose of that?”

The Day of the Dead honors departed souls of loved ones who are welcomed back for a few intimate hours. At burial sites or intricately built altars, photos of loved ones are centered on skeleton figurines, bright decorations, candles, candy and other offerings such as the favorite foods of the departed. Pre-Columbian in origin, many of the themes and rituals are mixtures of indigenous practices and Roman Catholicism.

In the last decade or so, this traditional Latin American holiday has spread throughout the U.S. along with migration from Mexico and other countries where it is observed.

Not only are U.S.-born Latinos adopting it, but various underground and artistic non-Latino groups have begun to mark the Nov. 1-2 holidays through colorful celebrations, parades, exhibits and even mixed martial arts fights.

Lois Zamora, a University of Houston English professor who has studied the Day of the Dead, said Disney’s interest shows how much this once obscure holiday has grown in the U.S. But she said the trademark attempt was odd.

“Disney doesn’t quite get it,” Zamora said. “It would be like copyrighting `Christmas or `Easter’ or, for that matter, `Halloween.’”

Graham Harvey, owner of the Thibodaux, La.-based Matthew Media group, said the Disney flap should be a reminder that all companies should have social media strategy as part of their promotions, or face the wrath in real time if any promotion is controversial.

“Any company or organization that wants to protect its brand needs to understand the powerful, viral nature of social media,” he said. “A backlash can occur in the blink of an eye.”

—

Whether it’s a visit to the supermarket, checking on your kids’ health needs or keeping track of household expenses, these are the apps that can turn your smartphone into your very own personal assistant. Here are 10 of our favorites:

Grocery Gadget Shopping List

A shopping management tool that organizes your pantry, refrigerator and more, and then syncs them with your favorite stores to cut shopping time in half. Grocery Gadget Shopping List helps you create permanent lists across multiple stores, and then ‘learns’ how you shop, re-ordering the lists to make you more efficient. Pricing comparisons and matching coupons make sure you get the best deal, and an online portal and cloud storage options ensure the information is always available.

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry

Price: $2.99 – $3.99

RedLaser

One of the original barcode scanners and still one of the best – it’s almost impossible to come up with a product it can’t find! It also reads QR codes. The RedLaser app searches for prices using Google, Shopping.com, eBay, American Express, and more, and provides information on coupons, deals, weekly circulars, and even store maps. Includes in-app purchasing for home delivery or in-store pickup.

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Price: Free

iRewardChart

The perfect way to keep your kids busy and motivated, iRewardChart assigns chores and tasks, tracks accomplishments, and suggests awards for achieving pre-set goals. You can choose from the iRewardChart list of task suggestions or you can enter your own. Similarly, you can choose from the suggested awards – $5 pocket money, an hour of TV, etc. – or customize your own awards. Other options include motivational messaging and a star system to track achievements.

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Price: $3.99

BillMinder

BillMinder helps you stay on track of payments and expenses by storing all your bills in one centralized location. You can organize by payee or payment date, and receive reminders when you arrive home or at times of the day when it’s convenient to make payments. You can set up automatic payments, track bill-paying history, and get multiple reports. Know exactly what you owe and never pay a late fee again!

Platform: iOS, Windows Phone

Price: $1.99

HomeRoutines

Whether it’s cleaning the house, doing the laundry, tending to the garden, or finishing off that DIY project, HomeRoutines will help you organize your household routines and make you more efficient. You can divide your home into manageable zones and organize routines by day, week, month or season. Timers and a gold star reward program will help keep you focused and motivated.

Platform: iOS

Price: $4.99

TaskRabbit

Too busy to get something done yourself? Outsource your task with TaskRabbit, an efficient, background-checked delivery and errand service currently operating in 10 cities and growing all the time. Whether it’s grocery shopping, picking up the dry cleaning, or delivering lunch, just pick the task from TaskRabbit’s spinning carousel or voice-record your own instructions. Payment and tipping is taken care of through the app, and GPS tracking gives you up-to-date status reports on your task.

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

Key Ring Rewards Cards

No more searching for those hard-to-find loyalty and membership cards! Key Ring Rewards Card slims down your wallet and speeds up the checkout line by storing everything you need in your smartphone. Once you register your cards, you can start receiving additional coupons and loyalty awards, which can be shared with friends via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. One app that is virtually guaranteed to save you money!

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free

Shoeboxed Receipt Tracker and Receipt Reader

Just take a picture of your receipts and Shoeboxed Receipt Tracker will organize them for you, extracting the store, type of purchase, date, amount, and more. Shoeboxed can create expense reports, which can be exported to Quickbooks and dozens of other accounting tools, and e-mail support is available for instant download. Great for business or just keeping track of the household budget!

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free

PocketPharmacist

PocketPharmacist is a great way to keep track of the family’s medical conditions, allergies and medications. It also gives unbiased information on over 1,500 of the top medications that are prescribed in the United States, including potential side effects and reactions. The app is perfect for moms, as well as caregivers, physicians, nurses, medical students, and other healthcare professionals.

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: $1.99

Monica Vila is “Chief Technology Mom,” born and raised in Mexico and co-founder of The Online Mom, the market leader in providing online and off-line tools to make parents of kids K-12 smarter and more comfortable with the technology that touches their family. The Online Mom is a website, an online newsletter, a forum for discussion, a network of certified experts and a social community devoted to promoting a healthy understanding and appreciation for the positive role technology can play in a family’s life.

“Amazing Grocery List” is an app he first built in 2011 for Android phones, and it has been selected as a Staff Pick in Google Play for the Android market. Since then, he has been tweaking it, and he says the app should be available for iPhones in a couple of weeks.

“It’s the only grocery list on the market which will predict when you’re running low on an item,” says Saucedo, who completed the original app in 3 to 6 months. “Certain equations I use in the back-end determine how much you buy an item. It does a pretty good job of predicting when you’re going to run low. The more you use it, the better it gets at predicting.”

(Courtesy Matt Saucedo)

He says the latest feature, which was prompted by user requests, allows you to share your grocery lists with others.

“My whole family uses the grocery list,” says the 23-year-old. “You can share lists with your roommate, and your family.”

He says he didn’t major in computer science, so he went on a self-discovery journey in app-building.

“I started to experiment with different equations that would work best, and I outsourced the work to India,” says Saucedo, who designed the front-end with a friend he hired from UCLA. “I didn’t have the coding skills, but I still had to manage the team…I had to make sure that everything was going to work from beginning to end, and that the entire process was going to make sense.”

The Whittier, California native, who is half Mexican and half Russian, says technology is a subject he’s always been interested in.

Matt Saucedo, 23, creator of “The Amazing Grocery List” app. (Courtesy Matt Saucedo)

“As a kid, I was always playing with legos,” he says. “With mobile apps you still have to put it together piece by piece and create something that didn’t exist before.”

Currently, Saucedo is working full-time as a management consultant for Deloitte Consulting, before he returns to Stanford Graduate School of Business in the fall to complete his MBA. Saucedo says he sees his future focused on technology.

“I’m interested in developing mobile software and hardware in emerging markets in places like South America, Central America and Africa, because there’s a lot of potential there,” says the alum of Adelante’s Leadership Institute. “There is more technology in a single iPhone than there was in the first space mission. I feel like we can be using our phones for a lot more than playing ‘Angry Birds.’”

“At first people were like, ‘oh how do I use this?’ but I think now it’s more like second nature,” says Sophomore Jose Estrella.

Estrella is talking about using the iPad instead of a textbook in his English, social studies, science and math classes. He’s one of about 20 sophomores who took part in a pilot program this year, where they traded in their textbooks for technology.

It was all made possible by a $10,000 donation from the Enterprise Holdings Foundation.

Estrella says the iPad makes life easier and it’s not just because it’s less heavy than a book.

“If you have a term to look up, or if you need to look up a formula, it’s really easy because you can just go to the search bar, look it up, then it goes to that chapter,” Estrella says.

First, let’s backtrack.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) – a U.S.-based non-profit organization that plays a key role in cyberspace governance, is set to allow approved new domain names to go into effect later this year. Corporate heavyweights like Google and Amazon have jumped in head first, jockeying to win domains like .app as well as .book, .shop, .game and others, which they would own entirely.  But some requests like .amazon are being objected to for geographical or cultural reasons.

“They always knew this was going to be a tricky issue,” says University of Houston Law Center professor Jacqueline D. Lipton, the author of ”Internet Domain Names, Trademarks and Free Speech.” “There has been little protection for geographically and culturally significant terms but this will matter in the gTLD space. Clearly these countries and geographic regions are well within their rights under ICANN policy to make these objections. What we’re missing are rules or guidelines to deal with these situations.”

Brazil and Peru gave the rationale for their objections in the early warning issued regarding .amazon.

“The Amazon region constitutes an important part of the territory of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, due to its extensive biodiversity and incalculable natural resources,” the objection read in part. “Granting exclusive rights to this specific gTLD to a private company would prevent the use of  this domain for purposes of public interest related to the protection, promotion and awareness raising on issues related to the Amazon biome. It would also hinder the possibility of use of this domain to congregate web pages related to the population inhabiting that geographical region.”

Both countries added that their objection comes with the full endorsement of Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana and Argentina.

Lipton says both sides can make good arguments for .amazon.

“I can completely understand why any trademark or brand owner would feel like it’s within their rights to own .brand or .trademark,” she says. “That’s the way the system has been set up, up to this point. The internet is used for communication but also as a commercial medium.”

NBC Latino reached out to Amazon but did not receive comment before publication.

Some say it sets a bad precedent for companies to be bidding on these words because there are not many entities that could pay the $186,000 application fee along with the possible millions that an eventual win may cost if companies like Google and Amazon go to auction for a hotly-contested domain like .app.

RELATED: “Scanning for Mexicans” ringtone, really??

“This is the first time I can think of in the history of anything, that any entity has been in position to auction to the highest bidder elements of language — words and phrases that are significant to different people in different contexts,” Lipton says. “If a [top-level domain] is highly disputed it will go to auction but these companies have done their cost benefit analysis and decided it’s worth it.”

Brazil and Peru aren’t the only countries taking on a corporation over domains. Argentina filed an objection to outdoor apparel company Patagonia — over you guessed it — .patagonia. Switzerland has also filed against Swiss International Airlines over .swiss, Kenya against DotConnectAfrica Trust for .africa and the U.S. has jumped into the fray against United TLD Holdco Ltd. for .army, .airforce and .navy.

Lipton says that as an internet lawyer, she often asks whether the law is the answer or market practices and negotiations can bring parties to a better place. She suggests that both sides may be able to come to a compromise in these disputes.

A lot of the motivation is very genuine for Brazil and Peru who want sites that are more informational than commercial,” she says.”But there are a lot of options. Companies may decide it’s better to share the gTLD, which would mean the brand name secures it and opens up some of the subdomains to parties that are culturally interested in being in that space.”

She says the debate goes to the heart of an open internet and what companies and individuals want the internet to be. “What is open? What is innovation? What is best for online communication? A company like Google has an idea about how significant it will be to hold one of these [top-level domains] in the Google algorithm and they will decide how to prioritize them,” Lipton says.

“This is all very relevant because at the end of the day we don’t know what innovation is going to look like online in the next few years.”