Google after the bell for 8-15-06: GOOG jumps over 3% today

Google shares closed up in a huge way today to end the trading session at $380.97, a sharp increase of $11.54 or 3.12% over Wednesday's close. What happened today to start the Google increase, you ask? Was it Google's launch of a free online coupon service for advertising partners at its Google Maps service?

How about teaming with coupon vendor ValPak for this new service? As this article over at The Fool points out, Google going old-school with its coupon service sends a mixed and strange signal -- is Google's online related services -- namely the just-removed-from-homepage Froogle service?

Maybe that's the mixed signal Google wants the market to teem over with analysis and rumor. Perhaps Froogle is doing fine as are Google's other e-commerce services. Maybe the recently-launched Google Checkout is waiting in the wings to steal gobs of marketshare and customer purchase dollars from established online marketplaces like Amazon.com and eBay. If so, Google is staying quiet -- very quiet.

Google may have quite a few initiatives in the recent past and even coming up in the product pipeline, but as Sheldon writes here, Google still only has one revenue stream -- Internet search ad dollars. What is Google's plan to monetize all these other initiatives? Why, trying to continue recruiting advertisers for its network in a form or fashion, of course.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.