Ever heard of SPDY before? It's a protocol draft based on HTTP introduced by the Google Chromium Project. In contrast to HTTP, SPDY supports request multiplexing over a single TCP connection, which leads to a much higher efficiency. SPDY also compresses the HTTP headers carried on top of it, to mention just two features.

Implementing SPDY in existing web servers is not a pony farm since it requires major changes to the core server logic. "mod_spdy" provides SPDY support for Apache but does not support request multiplexing, which would require hacking the core.

Apart from visiting the CeBIT last Saturday, I've spent my weekend implementing SPDY in pronghorn. In order to make multiplexing work, I've to put in some additional effort. But the results look really encouraging so far.