Yesterday, Amazon announced the launch of “Customer Video Reviews,” a service that allows customers to share what they think about a product and demonstrate a product in action, which can be instrumental in getting getting others to buy. The videos are grouped with the conventional reviews on a product’s page, making it easy for potential customers to view the videos.

“We are dedicated to offering our customers an information-rich shopping experience so they can know which products are right for them,” notes Colin Bodell, the vice president of Amazon.com. “The chance to see product demonstrations as submitted by fellow customers is just the latest benefit to shopping on Amazon.”

After watching a few video reviews for products as divergent as the Wenzel Queen Airbed and the Darth Vader Voice Changer, I’m instantly addicted. These videos give customers an insight into a product’s value that conventional reviews just can’t, and seeing a product in action can awaken an intense urge to buy, even in a jaded eCommerce blogger like myself.

Some of these are far too long, but I guess that should be expected. I didn’t make it through a review for Playstation 3 that was over 9 minutes long, and the portion I did watch didn’t impart any value. Video reviews should demonstrate why you should or shouldn’t buy a product, not outline mundane details that could and should be found in a product description. A video review shouldn’t simply state if a product has Wi-fi, but whether the Wi-fi works well in a coffee shop/airport/home. That’s the strength of the video review… showing potential customers what a conventional review can’t, and doing it in a way that holds their attention just long enough to impart value.

To test the service (and to try and take my own advice) I did a video review this morning for the headset I use to record the Magento screencasts, the Sennheiser Gaming Headset. We’ll post a follow-up link to it in tomorrow or Monday’s post (since video reviews typically take 48 hours to appear on the site… a tactic to prevent inappropriate video, I’m guessing). Overall, the upload process was incredibly easy. Amazon allows you to upload your video file in .WMV, .MPEG, QuickTime or .AVI formats, and the browse/upload tool works in a way that’s basically identical to YouTube’s. Amazon has even struck an agreement with the Flip Video camcorder that can automatically upload a review from the camera to Amazon.

I can imagine that this feature will be incredibly popular on Amazon. As more and more retailers see the value in video reviews, I have a feeling that we’ll start to see that this is the direction that reviews in general are heading. According to research conducted by the E-Tailing Group, embedded video reviews are among the top content features that influence a customer’s decision to convert. Maybe we should all start investing in the Amazon-sponsored Flip Video, because I bet we’ll be seeing and making a lot more of these video reviews.