A week ago, Facebook sent out an invitation to a mysterious press event at its California HQ, which read: “‘Come and spot what we’re building”.

Since then, speculation as to what the social network giant would announce has spiralled. Would or not it’s a brand new advertising platform, a mobile OS, or perhaps a full-blown Facebook handset

Well, now the wait is over, and we all know what Facebook have been building: ‘Graph Search’.

Graph Search, with a purpose to launch initially in a personal beta, is an expanded social search function intended to show you how to navigate connections – whether that’s friends, photos, places, and interests.

Users can combine phrases to narrow down their search by traits including location, interests, and relationship to the user. A few of the examples given by Facebook include with the ability to look for “software engineers who live in San Francisco and prefer skiing,” or “movies liked by those who like movies I like”.

“When Facebook first launched, the most way the majority used the location was to browse around, study people and make new connections,” said Facebook’s Tom Stocky and Lars Rasmussen in a blog post announcing the function. “Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to make use of the graph to make new connections.”

It’s a potentially powerful tool for users seeking recommendations, grouping their friends by interest, or trying to trace down people they’ve met and cannot remember the names of.

But, with Facebook’s story over the past six months being dominated by attempts to monetise its huge userbase, it’s hard to not see the possible benefits for marketing. Facebook haven’t revealed how, or if in any respect, this can work for bettering the targeting of adverts on its site and apps, nevertheless it seems unlikely that there will be no developments in this front.