Emily Griffith

Dr. Carpenter
COM 275
February 6, 2018
Meltwater Topic Analysis
“Store of the future?” At least that is how some people are describing Amazon’s new
shopping experience, Amazon Go.
Amazon Go is a grocery store with no checkout required. Instead of waiting in line,
Amazon’s highly advanced shopping technology allows its customers to “Just Walk Out.” With
technology used in self-driving cars, such as computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning,
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or
returned to shelves and keeps track of them in customers’ virtual carts.
In order to start shopping, customers need to open the Amazon Go app to enter the store,
and then can feel free to put away their phone for the remainder of the shopping experience.
Customers do not need their phones to shop. When customers are finished shopping, they
literally just walk out of the store. However, its not that easy. Shortly after, Amazon will send
customers a receipt and charge their Amazon account.
Currently, there is only one, 1,800 square foot store located at 2131 7th Ave, Seattle,
Washington. The store offers ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack options made by
hired local chefs and kitchens. In addition, it offers local grocery essentials.
However, how is the public reacting to this “wave of the future?” Is it convenient and
offers little to no face-to-face interaction, or is it another example of technology taking away
American jobs? With the research data of Meltwater from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube, blogs and forums, one can understand the public opinion on Amazon Go.
Search Keywords
In order to first narrow down research data, we needed to come up with keywords to
search in the available social media platforms. When looking for general topics, themes and
reviews revolving around Amazon Go, we determined all the searches must have the keyword
“Amazon Go,” while also having at least one of the following keywords: “high-tech,” “grocery,”
“future of shopping,” “Go Store,” “Seattle,” “shopping,” “#AmazonGo,” “cashiers,” “checkout,”
“security,” “honor system,” “human interaction,” “reviews,” “major advantages,” and “Amazon
Go shopping experience.”
As one can imagine, this came up with a great deal of data results, more like 15,103
social media posts within the last two weeks. Knowing this is far too much data to analyze, my
partner and I decided to shift through some of the initial data using a “Monitor Dashboard” in
Meltwater, to understand some general themes and issues surrounding Amazon Go. Once we had
a general idea of some of these themes, we adjusted our searches to strictly include some of those
theme keywords (this will be discussed later on in the report). In addition, we determined to
adjust the time periods to different days, weeks and years.
Time Frames
December 2016
Amazon Go was launched on January 22, 2018; however, this was about a year later than
the company originally planned. Tracing back to 2016, the first Amazon Go social media
mention was on December 3 on DVD Talk, an online forum, by username mhg83:

Based off the format of the post, it looks like the user may have gotten his hands on an
Amazon press release. It is safe to assume this because other popular news sites, such as CNN
Money or Fortune, did not post about Amazon Go until December 5, 2016. In addition, media
exposure for December 3, 2016, was at a count of 1 and its social reach at 0. Media exposure is
useful for determining the amount of coverage a topic is getting over a select period of time.
Social reach, however, gives insight to the number of potential viewers that have been exposed
to a particular message on social media. From this, we can determine that although mhg83 may
have broke the news of Amazon Go, he did not get the coverage or a far-reaching audience
viewership.

Media Exposure
 Social Reach

After expanding the time frame from December 3 to December 7, 2016, it is clear that the
media coverage by Fortune and CNN Money on the 5th made a vast difference than mhg83’s post
on DVD Talk initially on the 3rd. For example, versus mhg83’s one media exposure count, the
media exposure for the 5th had 6,544 counts. In addition, its social reach sky-rocked to 41,210
views on the 5th, increasing to 63,730 views on the 6th.
From this data time frame, it was determined
that a top source, or where the topic is covered most
frequently, was on Twitter (79.90%) and Forums
(11.89%). However, an interesting finding was that
Amazon Go got the most social reach on Facebook,
which only served as 3.6% of source coverage. This
may be because of Facebook’s popularity. In Pew
Research Center’s “News Use Across Social Media
Platforms 2016” report, it found that Facebook was
by far the largest social media networking site,
reaching 67% of U.S. adults. Within this percent,
two-thirds of these Facebook users got their news
there, which amounts to 44% of the general
population. This is unlike Twitter, which is only
used by 16% of the U.S. adult population, where
9% get their news from the social media platform.
A top influencer for Facebook social reach proved to be the page of Modern House Design.
Sentiment
Expanding the time frame to the first month
within the announcement of Amazon Go, it was
determined that there was mostly neutral sentiment
(53.6%) from the media coverage regarding the new
technology driven store; however, there was also a great
deal of positive sentiment (39.2%). Sentiment allows
researchers insight into how coverage over a brand,
product, event or topic is broken down positively,
negatively, or neutrally. Sentiment is not always accurate,
on the contrary. Sentiment is determined by a set of keywords that are given positive or negative
connotation. For example, “killing it” could be taken negatively; however, when talking in
reference to a basketball team, “killing it” it would be most likely taken as a positive remark.
However, because the computer has it programed to track all keywords of “killing it” as negative
sentiment, it will only be regarded as negative, no matter the given context. An example in the
context of Amazon Go was in this post by user @jamesEd_me:

This tweet is referring to an ad a French grocery chain, Monoprix, and agency Rosapark
made that follows Amazon's ad nearly line by line. They did this to show people
it's been delivering on Amazon Go's promise for a while now and Amazon Go is not the first.
While the tweet itself is read as having a negative image issue for Amazon Go, it was picked up
by Meltwater’s data set as to have positive sentiment. This could be because of the keywords
“mocked” and “remake.” Despite the other keywords such as “latecomer” or “snarky,” “mocked”
and “remake” could be filed in the computer system as positive because it shows a brand or
product wanting to replicate what another company has done. This French ad specifically caused
a spike of 639 counts of Amazon Go media exposure on December 21, 2016.
Regarding trending themes— keywords and key phrases most frequently associated with a
brand, product or topic— during the first month after Amazon Go’s announcement, the
following were found:
 Trending Themes

Its no surprise that “Amazon Go” (8,245 mentions) and “amazon” (6,954 mentions)
were trending themes at the time, but one that was interesting was “car crashes” (2,067
mentions). Once clicking on the key phrase, it was clear why the phrase was so popular.
@Vineyille posted
a humorous tweet, poking
fun at Amazon Go and the
world of innovative
technology today. The key
phrase “car crashes”
became so popular because
others found the user’s
tweet funny and retweeted
it. That said, no other
tweets using the key phrase
“car crashes” were original.
January 2018 Media Exposure

One might be wondering, “Why

does the timeline go from December 2016
to January 2018?” This is because Amazon
Go actually never got released on its
original date of intent, as stated before.
Due to Amazon running into problems
tracking more than about 20 people in the
store at one time, Amazon pushed back the
unveiling of Amazon Go for about almost
a year. The official release date of the Go
store was January 22, 2018. However,
Amazon Go received the most media
exposure on January 21.
Media exposure went from a count of 12 on January 20 to a count of 8, 574 on January
21. This was interesting because it was the day before its opening. One would think that opening
day would gain the most media exposure, however, it was only at a count of 5,783 and only
declines from then on. This could be Amazon learning from past experiences. Before, Amazon
sent out press releases that were exposed to the public before initial release dates (see first
example), and instead, could have wanted to keep the unveiling a secret in order to build up hype
around the issue. It worked. There were huge lines to get into the store on opening day, staying
that way until past mid-day.

Social Reach

While there was more media exposure the day before Amazon Go’s opening day, the
social reach proved higher on January 22 than January 21. YouTube potentially reached
10,390 people, Twitter potentially reached an audience of 57,900,000 people, Facebook
potentially reached 227,420,000 people and Instagram had a potential reach of 2,560,000
people. Again, Facebook most likely reached a wider audience because of the tendency to share
videos and posts, in addition to it being a popular source where adults receive their news.
When playing around with
keywords to search in order to
narrow down our results after the
Amazon Go opening, my partner
and I stumbled across the suggestion
to search “tampons.” Intrigued, we
entered it in as one of the keywords
that had to be included in a post, and
came across a social media
influencer, YouTube account Linus
Tech Tips.
One reason why this review
got so much attention over other
YouTube accounts which also did reviews about Amazon Go was because of its compelling title.
He did not just title the video something basic such as, “Seattle Amazon Go Review”; instead, he
wanted the title to tell a story. One of the big controversies about Amazon Go is how the
checkout is not always accurate. Sometimes, it will miss a product in the customer’s cart.
However, Amazon will not make you come back to pay for the item and say that “It’s on us.”
Another incident is if one is charged for a product that they did not walk out with, they have a
feature to remove the item from one’s final receipt. While this may allow stealing, Amazon is
trying to go with the honor system. But, its not that absurd because one’s Amazon account is tied
to their Prime account, which is linked to their credit card. Thus, through machine learning,
Amazon can figure out if people are abusing the system.
In addition, this video received a great deal of attention because of the author’s flaw. The
video says that he stole tampons, but he is clearly holding pads in his hands. Feminists around
the world were upset at the step back in women’s hygiene knowledge.
February 2018
After moving the time frame one last time, my partner and I found an interesting spike on
February 3. One of these reasons was because of a Chinese grocery store, Hema. Below are some
of the trending themes regarding the Amazon Go search when paired with “China” and “Hema”
to be included in the keywords of a social media post.

Trending Themes

UK Business Insider released an article about how Alibaba is expanding Hema, a chain
of cashless supermarkets, similar to Amazon Go. However, the author writes about how Hema
has two advantages over Go stores: shoppers can order groceries online and have them delivered
in under 30 minutes and chefs will cook shoppers’ groceries on demand.
Similar to the French ad, people are trying to point out that while Amazon Go is
innovative in nature, especially for the United States, it is not the first of its kind. Instead, there
are already other organizations who have made these technological steps to get one foot into “the
future.” In addition, Hema has already made outgrowth with its cashless stores— being a
supermarket— while Amazon Go only remains in Seattle.
However, these competitors offer Amazon Go places to learn and grow. While Amazon
Go has chef prepared food available for customers, they are not prepared to customers’ demands.
This is an area where Amazon could expand. In addition, Amazon could try to expand to
delivering groceries in less than 30 minutes to surrounding homes and businesses. Amazon Go
can also expand to other popular cities. Finally, one area that Amazon Go could try to expand
that other places have not is with clothing and shoes.
 While it may have not been the first, Amazon Go shows great technological
advancements for America in order to help with convivence. If this is the “future,” the public’s
social media shows they are ready for it.
 References

Amazon Go: Frequently asked questions. (2018). In Amazon. Retrieved from

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011

Gottfried, J., Shearer, E. (2016, May 16). News use across social media platforms 2016. Pew

Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-

across-social-media-platforms-2016/

Peterson, H. (2018, Feb. 3). China has a supermarket unlike anything in the US — and it has 2

major advantages over Amazon Go. Business Insider. Retrieved from

http://ht.ly/tKSo50gmqa8