As much as Facebook's head of platform partnerships Julien Codorniou was keen to stress the business opportunities for smartphone devs looking to target the social platform at his Social Games and Virtual Goods Forum keynote, he was also intent on explaining the firm's own interest in the sector.

In short, games help Facebook users "tell their story".

 

Wall posts in Facebook's new Timeline posts are no longer token efforts, but rather designed to paint a full picture of the user in question, standing side by side with a user's photos and other activities.

Tale of two companies

From a business perspective, Codorniou detailed the success of two firms.

Wooga, which jumped straight into Facebook and has enjoyed much success with both the Facebook and mobile versions of Diamond Dash, and King.com, which was already a successful business, but has seen its DAUs hit 6.2 million a year after launching its first title on the platform.

New or old, there's a place for mobile social devs on Facebook.

"For us, the web and mobile are the same thing," said Codorniou, stressing the need for developers to target both.

"Game developers make Facebook an interesting place. You can build your business out of the Facebook platform."

It's a canny strategy, in truth, with Facebook looking to act as the foundation for smartphone games development rather than a rival to it.