Usage of Internet Explorer 6 dropped off significantly in March, with about 8 million people dropping the browser during that time. The browser, which used to dominate the internet market, is now used by less than 12% of internet users – as it loses share to Firefox, Chrome and newer versions of Internet Explorer.

These results are significant for a number of reasons. First of all, they do show the continued trend of movement away from IE and towards alternative browsers like Chrome. But, more importantly for internet entrepreneurs, it means that the web development world is on its way to being significantly less complex. As any web developer knows, every web browser has its own idiosyncrasies that require odd workarounds and hacks to ensure that websites display properly. Internet Explorer 6 has been notorious for its quirks, since it does not comply with the same web standards that many other browsers use.

Luckily, with people dumping IE6, developers will soon be able to ignore it while creating websites. This means that they can focus on more standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, Chrome and newer versions of IE. In the long run, this will only make the job of the web developer easier.

Jessica Jackley, one of the co-founders of Kiva, has recently started a new project to help entrepreneurs the world over access capital. Inspired by the success of Kiva at getting financing for microloans in the developing world, she speculated that there might be a market for community assistance to people trying to start businesses in their home countries.

The result was profounder. The site allows entrepreneurs to create a profile of their business idea so that they can pitch it to potential online investors. Once this happens, they can contact members of their local communities, families and friend groups and ask them to get involved in helping to start the business. Once they accumulate enough capital, they can move forward on their project and start repaying the loans.

Profounder’s philosophy is a lot like the process many entrepreneurs use for bootstrapping their companies – accessing loans from family and friends (or from themselves) when they lack the ability to attract big-time investors. The difference is that it allows them to simplify the process in an online setting, where they can easily pitch to many friends or community members, keep track of who has invested and repay investors.

For more information on profounder, visit the site!

Alan Schaaf, a 21 year old college student, created the website imgur.com in February of 2009. He did all of the coding work for the site in his spare time and continues to maintain it by himself when he finds time in between his classes and other activities.

The website itself is a start-up image hosting service. Concerned by what he saw as the complexity or annoyingness of other image hosting sites, Alan thought that he could create something simpler. Imgur, therefore, has an extremely simple interface that allows people to post photos online and distribute them using links to the rest of the internet.

Imgur has gained notoriety mostly as an image hosting service for content that appears on other social networks. On websites like Digg.com and particularly on Reddit, most of the image stories that are submitted are via imgur links. Because of this, the site has gained unbelievable amounts of traffic – over 88,000 new images are uploaded every day, and 94 million are downloaded – using a whopping 13 terabytes of bandwidth.

The site’s wild popularity shows what can happen when somebody with a little bit of time and determination and a really good idea gets to work on an internet start-up. In only 2 years, a college student could change the face of the internet.

Starting today, The New York Times is no longer allowing unlimited access to their website for free. Instead, they are now letting users read 20 articles online per month. Once those 20 articles are used up, the website will require users to pay a subscription fee to gain access to more online content.

There are some notable exceptions to this rule, however. First, subscribers to the print edition of the New York Times will always be able to read it online for free. Second, if users come to articles by clicking links on social media sites (such as twitter or Facebook), they will always be able to view articles for free.

This decision reflects a significant change in the structure of the newspaper business and their online business model. Obviously, with subscription rates in free-fall, newspapers have realized that offering their paper at a cost when the same content is available online for free is an unsustainable business model. But how will consumers react to the limits and fees? Though allowing free access through social media links is a step in the right direction, it seems like the New York Times is only going to frustrate users and drive them to other sites. With content available for free everywhere online, what makes the Times any better than any other site? Only time will tell whether this strategy will work out.

Perhaps the company would be better served by using a strategy of online advertising to generate revenue for their site. Or, perhaps, they could follow The Economist’s lead and offer a limited number of stories online with the opportunity for paid subscribers to access a digital edition.

The Chinese government has had a long-running history of restricting and censoring the internet. From blocking access to Google search results, to censoring websites with information that it believes provide information that would undermine the authority of the Chinese government and culture, China makes sure that it keeps tight controls on what its citizens are able to do online. Many citizens, in a quest for free access to information, have responded to these restrictions by using VPN services to get access to the outside world.

Now, it seems, the Chinese government has decided to start a new round in the war for the internet in China. As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, China has begun clamping down access to the servers of companies that provide VPN services to Chinese citizens in an attempt to close the loopholes in its censorship regime. In addition, the government, which has always seemingly been at odds with Google, has apparently begun carefully disabling certain portions of Google’s popular Gmail service. Google has accused China of disabling Gmail in a way that makes it look like a technical error on Google’s part rather than all-out censorship. Google has previously accused the Chinese government of hacking into its Gmail system to compromise the privacy of Google’s users.

Only time will tell how this new round of restrictions and regulations will play out in China. Hopefully, in the long run, the government will back down on its restrictions and allow its people free and open access to the internet.