Big new TLDs week: .Luxury, Rightside and Travel Bonanza

An $800-per-year domain launches, Rightside hits GA, Donuts has a travel-focused week, and .best tries not to be .worst.

Another big week is on tap for new top level domain including some new faces.

Things get rolling today with general availability for .luxury. It’s a luxurious domain indeed, with a wholesale price of $400. Many registrars are charging a 100% mark-up, making the domain an $800 annual purchase.

Luxury brands took advantage of reduced prices in the sunrise period with about 500 registrations.

.Luxury is sure to do better than .rich, an even pricier domain with little utility. But it will be very interesting to watch .luxury and how this price affects registration and use of the domain.

Another big release this week comes courtesy of Rightside. On Wednesday, Rightside’s first two domains hit general availability. It’s had a nice test run with Donuts’ domains, and now it’s Rightside’s turn with .dance and .democrat.

I expect .democrat to get lots of press, especially after some people register popular politician’s domain names.

Speaking of Donuts, two of its domain names revert to regular pricing on Wednesday. This includes the controversial .exposed domain, which is sure to get IP counsel’s attention.

Travel companies should pay attention to the five domains Donuts domains is launching in Early Access on Wednesday: .Villas, .Flights, .Rentals, .Cruises and .Vacations.

I’ll be interested to see what Booking.com does with .villas. It has purchased dozens of ccTLDs and TLDs matching villa and villas for its new Villas.com website.

PeopleBrowsr, the company behind the struggling .ceo domain name, will launch .best on Wednesday. This domain should also struggle to gain traction for a few reasons.

First, it’s backward — most people think best.thing, not thing.best. Second, it doesn’t seem to have broad registrar distribution. Nic.best doesn’t mention anything about registrars. Third, it’s expensive at about $99. Finally, it just doesn’t seem like it would be high on any company’s list compared to other domains. Utility seems limited to me.

It’s possible there could be some value when it comes to online advertising, such as using best in the URL in Google Adwords. But it’s fairly limited.

[Thanks to Calzone.org for providing data information for TLD launches. TLD applicants are welcome to let me know if I missed any general availability announcements for this week.]