Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
This is new thing in town and will be finest armor in your armory. It is easy to learn as it is almost same as Javascript and Python. There is a sample video tutorial on Nodejs site, which tells how easy it is to create a chat server. Once you will learn I can bet you will feel like you can do anything now.