Facebook has announced a new version of their newsfeed, “designed to reduce clutter and focus more on stories from the people you care about.”

According to Facebook’s recent release about the redesign, you’ll see all the stories you saw in your News Feed before, but with a “fresh new look.”At right, a side-by-side showing how more of the Facebook real estate will be dedicated to the newsfeed column that’s been crowded out by left and right sidebars (click to view larger).

“We’ve completely rebuilt each story to be much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing. Photos, news articles, maps and events all look brighter and more beautiful.”

Facebook will also be introducing several new feeds, including:

• All Friends – a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
• Photos – a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like
• Music – a feed with posts about the music you listen to
• Following – a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like.

For authors with pages, this means new opportunities to communicate with your readers, by making sure you’re including photos on your posts, and through the feed dedicated to pages a reader follows, as well as the usual main newsfeed.

The new design will also have the same look and feel on computers, tablets and mobile devices. mobile, tablet and web. For example, the left-hand menu is accessible anywhere you go on Facebook. You’ll also have a way to jump right to the top of News Feed whenever new stories come in.

Facebook will be rolling out the new design over the coming weeks on web and mobile. If you’d like to get it early, visit www.facebook.com/newsfeed and add yourself to the waiting list. The design updates will be available on iPhones and iPads in the coming weeks and then to Androids.

For more info on how the changes may impact the effectiveness of your author page, we recommend this excellent article at Social Fresh: 5 Implications Of The New Facebook News Feed.