I spend a lot of time on the Internet — both with the day job and in my free time because, well, my name is Jeff, and I’m an Internet addict.

When you spend massive amounts of time with anything, it all kind of runs together and rarely does something jump out at you. I’ve reached that state with Web sites — to the point that the Internet has almost become a veritable wasteland of popup ads and spam advertising products I hope I’ll never need.

A couple of weeks ago I had an opportunity to sit in on a conference call that would include a test run of ShopMeter, a Web site developed by Mitchell 1 as a benefit for ASA members. I had heard occasional progress reports but this was my first time to see the actual product. As soon as the demonstration began, I knew … This. Is. Big.

The Web site gives shop owners key performance indicator (KPI) data, pulled from the millions of pieces of data collected by Mitchell 1 and is updated monthly. The KPIs are organized on the site by year, make and model of the vehicle, a several mile radius of a ZIP code or by comparing months. The amount and quality of that information is staggering.

In my former professional life as a photographer, a tool like this would occasionally come along, giving the business owner the information or platform they needed to get ahead and would become an industry standard in no time at all. I believe this Web-based tool has that kind of potential.

In a press conference Thursday introducing the new member benefit, Jon Vance, Mitchell 1 project manager, said three words that, in my opinion, summed up what makes ShopMeter valuable: “Knowledge is power.”

I think the knowledge that this new Web-based tool will share with ASA members will give them the power they need to get ahead.