Cameras, Computers, Celebrities
Lindsay Lohan Nudie Pics a Huge Hit, But Bring Down Mag's Web Site
Well, New York Magazine's 'Playboy'-esque foray into nudie pics has been incredibly successful. This week's photos of the completely naked, barely-legal Lindsay Lohan have garnered the print magazine plenty of attention, not to mention the NYMag Web site, which got more traffic than it could handle than it could handle.
The star of 'Herbie Fully Loaded' and Disney's misguided remake of 'The Parent Trap' shed her garments to recreate Marilyn Monroe's last nude photo shoot, which has come to be known as 'The Last Sitting.' The images were shot by Bert Stern, who created the original photo shoot with Monroe back in 1962. The be-freckled, former red-head generated so much Web traffic for the magazine that for a while on Monday the site was completely inaccessible.
According to Forbes and Portfolio.com, the New York magazine site -- which published a slide show of the photo shoot, as well as some outtakes -- received 40 million views over the first two days that it was up (around 2,000 percent more than usual). Meanwhile, the magazine got 500 more subscription requests than it usually gets in a week. To boot, Forbes is reporting that Bert Stern was paid a standard fee for doing the shoot, and Lohan apparently did the shoot for nothing (which is a whole lot cheaper than the figures some celebrity publications pay for images of stars). So it looks like New York magazine really made a good deal here.
There are two lessons to be learned here. First, the Web can still help bring some business to beleagured print magazines, especially if you choose a lusted-after starlet to pose nude. Second, if you're going to post pictures of starlets' nipples, then you need to invest in some extra capacity so your Web site isn't brought to its knees.
Still, those are some pics, no?
From Portfolio, Forbes, New York Observer, and New York.
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