In what seemed to be a subtle way of overturning Google's dominance in the search engine arena on the World Wide Web, Facebook launched on Tuesday its New Graph Search that enables its more than 1 billion users discover people, photos, places and interests. Well, at least for now.

"Graph search is not Web search," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive, stressed in a press conference at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

But then again, experts said that could hold only for now - once Facebook users see the beauty of the facility from a mere tool of interaction into one that actually aids them discover new things.

In a nutshell, the new Graph Search of the world's biggest social network will give users the privilege to perform complicated queries that are related to their friends' profiles, such as "find friends who like soccer," "find friends who like soccer in your hometown" to the more wide ranging "tourist attractions in France visited by my friends" and the more intrusive "friends of friends who are single in San Francisco."

Ultimately, Facebook's Graph Search pulls off the colossal amount of personal information and experiences its users have brought into the site over the years, collates them and makes them available with just a few keystrokes.

Mr Zuckerberg did not directly admit it, but, yes, Facebook somehow aims to shake Google's dominance.

"We not expect people to flock Facebook to do web search . . . That isn't the intent," he said. "But in the event you can't find what you're looking for, it's really nice to have this."

And what could be Facebook's bottom line reason for its foray into the search engine arena? Well, the cash of course.

According to research firm eMarketer Inc, majority of Google's $40 billion in annual revenue worldwide is culled from selling ads on its search engine. In 2012 alone in the U.S., Google was forecast to rake in more than $13 billion in search-ad revenue, or 75 per cent of the entire market.

For now, Facebook's Graph Search, still in beta or test mode, was only rolled out to a very small fraction its more than 1 billion users. It currently has no ads.

But the monetisation is inevitable, specially if users start scouring for business establishments in large numbers, business owners may ultimately see it as an opportunity to get preferential treatment in search results, but in exchange for a price.

"This could potentially be a business over time," he said, adding the social site plans to also roll out the product on mobile phones and in other languages.

For a demo on Facebook's Graph Search, click here --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ3_zS2Y88o

Facebook's announcement is here --- https://newsroom.fb.com/Photos-and-B-Roll/4321/Graph-Search-Announcment