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Node.js, in the simplest most basic terms, is a framework to develop server-side applications through JavaScript.
In comparison to most other similar technologies, node.js is extremely well suited at doing things that send a lot of messages from one user to another, such as chat clients, Twitter-like services, game servers.
It is used for developing applications that make heavy use of the ability to run JavaScript both on the client, as well as on server side and therefore benefit from the re-usability of code and the lack of context switching.
Node.js is only an environment; you have to do everything yourself.
Node.js is pretty interesting because it uses Javascript. This is useful for two reasons. First, having the client side and server side code written in the same language creates convenience for writing interactive websites. Second, because browsers are so competitive, there are many fast implementations of Javascript, Node.js runs very quickly.
Here is a tutorial
Node is getting popular as a server-side platform and is used by IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Walmart, Groupon, SAP, LinkedIn, Rakuten, PayPal, Voxer, and GoDaddy and many more.
Here is another Node.js tutorial.
I will very soon write about my own experience on using Node.js.