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 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.

Similarly, Decide.com is trying to provide the same information for the consumer electronics industry, which often moves too fast for the average person to keep up.

The concept plays off the same fears that Best Buy’s new Buy Back promotion is addressing. The promotion, which allows you to return products for the latest model for a fee, is the subject of a hysterical TV commercial.

In one scene, a man is happily receiving his new 3-D TV, only to find out that 4-D is coming soon — no glasses needed! The man slaps himself, while his daughter runs around the yard, teasing: “You got the wrong TV, sillyhead!”

Decide’s CEO Mike Fridgen said on average six new laptops and one new TV come out every day, and a camera comes out every other day. “We are the only site that says ‘wait,’ there’s a newer model available at a cheaper price.”

The site is designed to help with deciphering product cycles and pricing trends.

Decide’s VP of Product and Market Michael Paulson said 20 percent of prices fluctuate daily, and it’s just as likely for prices to go up as down because of dynamic pricing models.

By keeping track of this information for the past two years, Decide has gathered 60 terabytes of data to be able to predict with some accuracy when a new model is coming out or when the price might change.

For example, on Amazon the Canon PowerShot G11 gets nearly five stars and costs $650. Fridgen says there’s no obvious reason not to buy it. But if you check Decide.com, you’ll find out that it’s already been on the market for 19 months and that a newer model is available now for only $450. With 78 percent confidence, it believes the price will hold steady.

Decide.com also aggregates information from news and rumor sites, which provide information on when products are coming.

The company anticipates making money through referral fees to e-commerce sites, where people will make purchases.

Right now, Fridgen says retailers are a little scared of the idea because it may suggest that a consumer should wait; however, he believes that it will ultimately benefit retailers because customers will be happier with their purchases and be less likely to make returns.

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.

The funding was led by a Seattle contingent including Maveron, which was started by Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, and Madrona Venture Group, which was founded by one of the original investors in Amazon.

In total, the company has raised $8.5 million.

In a blog post, the company’s CEO, Mike Fridgen, did not elaborate on what the company was working on, but said it is offering “early adopters and consumer electronics geeks a chance to preview the site just before it goes live late spring.” To qualify, you must “like” Decide’s Facebook fan page and share a pic of your favorite old-school device.

In an interview with GeekWire, Fridgen shared no details, but said it is the company’s goal to help with the decision process around buying a new product: “At the moment of purchase, there are some real pain points around buyer’s remorse that we will be addressing with data and technology,” he said.

The company’s tagline: “Bringing unprecedented transparency to electronics shopping.”

A number of angels also participated in the round. Dan Levitan of Maveron and Hugh Crean, former CEO of Farecast, will join the board. Ram Shriram, Google’s founding board member and early investor, and Erik Blachford of Expedia will join the company’s advisory board. The company was co-founded by Oren Etzioni, who founded Farecast before selling it to Microsoft.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, shoppers who once lusted after high-priced fashion brands have turned frugal, would-be early retirees are polishing off their job skills and many homeowners owe more than their houses are worth.

“It’s pretty safe to say that you probably had a more dramatic shift in consumer behavior in the last two years than in the last 30 or 40 years,” said Maveron Partner Dan Levitan, who co-founded the firm in 1998 with Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz. “People are less proud of indulgences and more focused on value.” But Maveron sees more opportunities than pitfalls in this trend.

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But pulling back the curtain, there’s more than just a simple round of financing here. The deal points to creative ways in which venture firms are finding liquidity other than the standard acquisitions, IPOs and secondary sales.

The funding comes from mezzanine investor BIA Digital Partners and growth investor Patriot Capital, new shareholders in the online investing site. Motley Fool’s early investors–venture firms Maveron and Mayfield Fund, which invested during the dot-com bubble–and secondary firm Saints Capital, which bought shares in 2005, did not reinvest. Instead, they will eventually be bought out.

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While the current meme is that traditional journalism is getting the stuffing knocked out of it by the digital onslaught, it neglects to notice that a lot of really sharp news reporters are actually getting some real traction by finally starting to be serious about creating online sites designed to compete.

As case in point, BoomTown recently went to visit the offices of TheWrap.com, a Web blog aimed at dominating breaking news about the business of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Funded by Seattle-based venture firm Maveron, it was founded by former New York Times and Washington Post reporter Sharon Waxman.

With a small team of writers, editors and one single business person–and run out of a cottage in back of her house in Santa Monica, Calif.–Waxman is trying to combine the high standards and ethics of journalism, the news-breaking abilities of longtime pros and a low budget.

The business plan is, no surprise: Advertising.

(Hey, just like All Things Digital! Except Waxman is near a pretty beach and our San Francisco-based World HQ–also known as a cottage behind my house–is foggier.)

In any case, innovative efforts like Sharon Waxman’s might become the rule rather than the exception in the future of the news media.

So far, on her own since its launch in late January, TheWrap.com is garnering several hundred thousand daily visitors each month, moving close to the Web sites of trade publications that cover the industry.

Here’s my video interview with Waxman, in which she gives the who, what, where and why: