Google Base (beta) launches?

Well. You can say at least one thing about Google_Base. It can only get better from here. Google Base invokes user-generated attributes and categories (ala Flickr) to submit content to Google's database (with potential inclusion in the main Google search index). The registration flow for Google Accounts (required to list) is very light, however users need to opt-out of Personalized search which tracks users' keyword selections for targeting ads.

There seems to be a significant problem accessing Google Base at the moment (I get dumped to an error page or onto the Google homepage). The one time I was able to log in, the user flow for listing products was a curious mix of being very basic while non-intuitive at the same time. The site also kept stating I couldn't add more than 200 items even tho I hadn't added any.

Searching Google Base is reminiscent of Froogle, which translates to a fairly poor product search experience (no surprise given both are beta). As users continue to add their own attributes and categories, I'm assuming this should improve the data structure to make navigation easier and more intuitive. That said, when I ran a search for 'recipes' s0me of the primary options given for refining my search were 'jobs', 'job type' and 'employer'. Mmk. Well... gotta start somewhere I guess. Seems like Google is having similar issues with Google_Analytics.