Second quarter earnings exceeded expectations, with $2.455 billion in total revenue for the quarter (up 77% year-over-year) and $2.33 earnings per diluted share. After the bell, investors seemed happy; the stock was recovering from its intraday drop of $11.88, although as the minutes ticked by, the recovery was less and less.

It will be interesting to watch as investors digest the report, and listen to the earnings conference call. I've just started listening, and it's a numbers-rattle-off right now.

4:41 p.m. -- Sergey Brin begins the call, talking about the details of the earnings report. He says that the company noted earlier that capex would be higher, as a percentage, than it was last year, and it continues to be, up to 12% of revenue from 10% last year -- that's a lot of dollars given the huge growth in revenue. Headcount was up over 1,000 people, mostly in Ireland and India.

4:44 p.m. -- Larry Page takes over to talk about the warmer, fuzzier parts of the business. He focuses on Google Checkout, which is hoped to help advertisers generate more sales. He says that Google's option will help advertisers capture those customers who abandon their shopping carts, and generate higher clickthroughs. He says they are "generating healthy adoption rates" including Bluefly, Starbucks, and more.

4:48 p.m. -- Page thinks this is one of the most exciting products the company has generated to date, and "hopes" it will bring revenues. Naturally investors want this: 99% of Google's revenues, healthy as they are, are still coming from search advertising.

4:49 p.m. -- Mobile is important, says Eric Schmidt, not just from an "information perspective, but from a monetization perspective." And they're already to questions? Oh my. That's fast. The operator isn't even ready to take questions! Eric stalls ...

4:51 p.m. -- First question: is the relevancy of search much better in the U.S. than internationally? And can we talk about the European operations? Eric says that the market share is strong, the ad business is strong, and turns it over to Omid Kordestani, SVP of Global Sales and Biz Dev, to answer the growth rate question. He says "we are growing the base, we are leveraging the sales channels."

4:53 p.m. -- Mark Mahoney from Citigroup wants to know about Google Checkout and asks if they've seen any increase in interest from advertisers. They say that Google Checkout is oriented toward users being able to both find the sellers and buy things more easily -- and not necessarily generate revenue in and of itself, but increase convenience for consumers and ad to the overall ad network.

4:55 p.m. -- Anthony Noto wonders about the different commercial terms that can trigger ads, and how fine-tuned the technology is. Is Google Finance a strategy to help provide deep content for the end user, which will help target the ads? Of course, is the answer, Google will generate greater return from all of this!

4:49 p.m. -- A really interesting quote from Eric, re: the company's search business: "we wanted to provide all of the information, no matter where it came from."

5:02 p.m. -- Adsense for radio, how will that work? It's on an integration schedule of about three months from now, they're meeting milestones and progressing well. Everyone is excited.

5:04 p.m. -- What's happening with Google Healthcare? Sergey answers, saying that so many companies and organizations approached Google, wanting the company to use its technology and innovation to help the world's health information organize itself. The CDC and other organizations, it seems, want to have Google help draw searchers toward more authoritative sources. "More broadly, we've seen that health information has broad similarities to the kind of challenges we deal with regarding contextual information." There's "no specific plan as of now." Hmmm... more throwing against the wall to see what sticks?

5:07 p.m. -- Conversion tracking for advertisers: I really want to hear about this. Google is doing tests with companies who track their incoming leads from phone calls only ... I'm a little unclear about what they're doing, whether they're tracking phone calls or simply doing a better job of tracking leads from Google ads, but it seems a good idea to convert existing phone technologies -- the ones to which so many advertisers are accustomed -- to its online ad business. How else can the company continue to astound with near-100% growth rates?

5:11 p.m. -- Russia and China. Ouch. There are "challenges," and "different product needs," but Google is now better staffed, and is "beginning to make strides." The company has improved its Russian language search technology, and opened a development office in Moscow.

5:13 p.m. -- Might Google ever use the information from its Google Checkout users for other marketing purposes? Paper advertising? Email? Google says they won't rent or sell information without the users knowing about it and being "transparent."

5:14 p.m. -- Are new partners or existing partners spurring growth? Omid says, oh, well both, of course. But what about the macro environment? Has return on investment for ads been improving? Eric says, really, it doesn't matter what the world outside does: in a "theoretical global recession" Google will benefit, given that it's the premier provider. He brings up the example of after 9/11, when so many advertisers were nervous about, well, everything -- they found that advertisers flocked to Google, because it could be trusted. A safe haven int eh storm, I guess.

5:18 p.m. -- Oooh! Ooh! A question about Net Neutrality -- what does Google think about it? How is the progress of the debate? Have they done any modeling on what might happen were the company to lose the battle? Sergey answers. He says that he cares about neutrality, not for Google, but for all those small companies out there. They, themselves, benefited so much from being able to play on equal footing when they were tiny. Google doesn't imagine "losing" the battle would have any effect on its own financial situation.

5:25 p.m. -- What about display advertising? No one talks about it? Omid says that they're working on selling it and it's too early to talk about successes yet. Thanks for the very clear answer. Larry, I think, talks about video ad experimentation, and wants to make sure the user isn't deceived.

5:29 p.m. -- What is the benefit of spending $24 million in a quarter for toolbar distribution? What is the impact on usage, and ultimately, revenue, from these agreements? Omid says, umm, it's strategic. It's about giving users better access to the company's search (because typing "google.com" is so onerous). It's about, not just growing market share, but protecting it. Oh such a non-answer.

Larry says that, compared to its competitors, it has very strong monetization on search -- therefore Google has a negotiating advantage (i.e. it can pay for deals when others might not be able to).

Final remarks: Google is committed to providing great products! Hurray! And we may now disconnect.