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Love is not a usual topic on Marketing Pilgrim. The closest we might come is covering Problogger Darren’s Rowse love letter to AdSense. There’s a fine line between queasiness and sweetness. And it is that time of year.

No one can say Google is heartless (just look at their logo today), but I’d say their love takes a certain practical bent. When you’re curious about how love and technology mix, and you have a decent budget, what do you do? You launch a national survey. Google commissioned Nielsen Online to see how we use email in our romantic relationships.

We use use email, text messages, IM, and probably Twitter to do everything from asking someone on a date to ending a marriage. It’s causing consternation in courtrooms and cultures worldwide.

Though decidedly unromantic I’m sure people have even emailed marriage proposals. The survey included talking to 1,713 people about how they use email (they used one of the following: AOL Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail).

Here are the results:

• 1 in 3 survey respondents said they have emailed a love letter
• Young people are more open to email love letters than older people are: only 14% of 18-24 year olds considered email love letters bad behavior, compared to 43% of respondents over the age of 55
• Men were more likely than women to have asked someone out on a date via email (26% versus 16%)
• While 31% of 18-24 year olds thought asking someone out on a date via email was poor form, 42% of respondents aged 55+ felt the same way
• 1 in 3 men considered “break-up emails” neutral to good email etiquette, whereas only 1 in 7 female respondents agreed
• 8% of men and 6% of women said they had broken up with someone over email

Here’s my survey - have you sent a love letter via email? If you haven’t it’s not too late!

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