Our take...
This is a much needed enhancement of the discovery experience surrounding Facebook's immense collection of gaming apps. During 2009, restrictions were placed on the viral nature in which apps could propagate, while the importance of advertising – whether via native in-app promotion, or off-app placement – came to the fore. The Dashboard presents a new channel for advertising opportunities that aren't limited to aggressive in-house cross-promotion or sufficiently sizeable advertising budgets. There's also room here for verified apps, games that have passed an optional submission procedure that results in a 'seal of quality' clearance from Facebook itself, to gain increased prominence.

Existing game developers will need to implement compatibility as a matter of urgency, once again underscoring how sensitive social gaming companies need to be to the policies of the social networks hosting their products. Moreover, this is also an opportunity to achieve further exposure, and shows Facebook's commitment to gaming, given the specific focus that its Dashboard interface will offer. Consequently, this implies that Facebook is looking to increase its involvement in gaming, and could be construed as an overture to it introducing its own virtual currency solution as a platform standard. This could be a vital revenue stream for the network itself, but have significant impact on the bottom line of the developers and operators that publish content there.