UW CSE’s Oren Etzioni was featured today on American Public Media, along with Mike Fridgen, CEO of Oren’s latest startup Decide.com.
“Etzioni started collecting online price data from all the airlines – then he created his own formula that could predict when the airlines would raise or lower their prices. His company was bought by Microsoft. And today, when you search for flights on Microsoft’s Bing search engine, you’ll see an arrow letting you know you if the price of that ticket is likely to head up or down.
“Now Etzioni wants to do it again. He and his partner Mike Fridgen … [are] predicting the prices of electronics – phones, cameras laptops and flat-screen TVs. When Mike came by my office, my wife and I were debating whether or not to buy a new television. … When we logged on, it showed me the lowest price available for the TV we were looking at – anywhere in the country. It showed me a price history for the product and when the next model would come out. Decide recommended we buy it – and we did.”