<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has fired a warning shot that threatens to ignite a battle to marry social networking with one of the most valuable areas of the technology industry: search.</p><p>Long dominated by Google Inc, the Web search market represents a "big opportunity" that Facebook is uniquely positioned to address, Zuckerberg said on Tuesday at a tech industry conference in San Francisco.</p><p>Zuckerberg's comments, the clearest signal that Facebook is eyeing one of the Internet's most lucrative markets at a time when its own advertising revenue growth rates are slowing, helped shore up the company's battered shares.</p><p>Facebook's stock, which had lost roughly 50 percent of its value through Tuesday since the company's May initial public offering, finished Wednesday's regular trading session up 7.7 percent at $20.93 -- the biggest one-day gain since Facebook began trading on Nasdaq.</p><p><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-12/business/sns-rt-us-facebook-searchbre88b1ls-20120912_1_facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-search-engine">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://business.time.com/2012/09/13/facebook-ceos-bullish-remarks-send-shares-soaring-but-do-they-reflect-reality/">Zuckerberg&#039;s Remarks Give Facebook Shares a Boost But Can He Deliver?</a> (TIME)</p><p><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0913/Facebook-stock-gets-a-much-needed-Zuckerberg-boost">Facebook stock gets a much-needed Zuckerberg boost</a> (Christian Science Monitor)</p><p><a href="http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-09-12/industries/33777068_1_facebook-posts-facebook-team-facebook-ability">Facebook posts biggest one-day pop</a> (MarketWatch)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&ncl=d2_6xdt9oyeF8gMz43pnRkBGBUnhM">1,904 additional articles.</a></p>