The New York Time’s Technology article called “Evite’s Day of Atonement” runs the body of an apology e-mail the company sent. It runs without commentary from NYT:

“Dear Evite Newsletter Subscriber,

Yesterday we mailed a newsletter to our subscribers with incorrect dates for three important holidays. Please accept our sincerest apologies for these errors and note the following corrections:

Labor Day, September 1st

Rosh Hashana, September 27th

Yom Kippur, October 6th

In addition, we also wish to apologize for having listed Yom Kippur as one of our ‘Reasons To Party.’ We understand and respect that Yom Kippur is a Day of Atonement, a day to be taken seriously to reflect and fast, and as such, one of the most important Jewish holidays in the year.

Again we deeply apologize for the error and thank you for allowing us to make this correction.

Very Best,

The Evite Team”

Let’s put aside for a moment how the original message was sent out in the first place and focus on the mea culpa. If you make a mistake, the best thing you can do is admit it, openly and candidly. Too many companies want to hide from the error, hoping no one will notice. Or they blame someone else. I think Evite did a very good job on this. The only thing I would change if I was running evite is I would have signed the apology and offered an e-mail address where users could contact me.