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Decide.com on AllThingsD, GeekWire, NY Times

“Ever wonder if you should buy a new digital camera, or wait for a better one just around the corner?

“Even worse, did you buy the brand new HDTV right before 3-D came out?

“A new electronics shopping service is launching today to eliminate buyer’s remorse, by providing consumers with enough information to help them make a better decision.

“The Seattle-based Decide.com is the brainchild of the same folks behind Farecast.com, which helped predict whether it was the right time to buy an airline ticket or if a price drop was coming.

“Farecast, which was purchased by Microsoft three years ago for $115 million, is now Bing Travel. …

“The company was co-founded by Oren Etzioni, who is also a computer science professor at the University of Washington. It has raised $8.5 million from Maveron, which was started by Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, and Madrona Venture Group, which was founded by one of the original investors in Amazon.”

Read more in AllThingsD, GeekWire., and the New York Times (“Decide.com – The Farecast for Electronics!”).

Etzioni comments:

“While Decide isn’t a spinout of UW technology, it has some remarkable ties to UW and to CSE:

  • Founders are myself and 4 UW alums (3 have their degrees from CSE)
  • Our Chief Scientist and our 2 other PhDs all received their Ph.D.s from CSE
  • Our CEO (Mike Fridgen) is a UW alum
  • Roughly 80% of our employees are UW alums”