The annual ACM Web3D Conference is one of the main venues for new networked graphics research each year. Its focus is on more integrative web technologies rather than low-level protocols, but still there is always good work on system architecture to look at.
Some of the ones that piqued our interest are (links to ACM DL coming):
Xflow – Declarative Data Processing for the Web
Klein, Felix (Saarland University, Intel VCI), Sons, Kristian (Saarland University, Intel VCI, DFKI), Byelozyorov, Sergiy (Saarland University, IMPRS-CS), Rubinstein, Dmitri (Saarland University, DFKI), Stefan John (TU Braunschweig), Slusallek, Philipp (Saarland University, Intel VCI, DFKI)
Real-time Collaborative Scientific WebGL Visualization with WebSocket (short paper)
Marion, Charles (Kitware SAS), Jomier, Julien (Kitware)
Server-Based Rendering of Large 3D Scenes for Mobile Devices Using G-Buffer Cube Maps (short paper)
Doellner, Juergen (Hasso-Plattner-Institute), Benjamin Hagedorn (Hasso-Plattner-Institute), Jan Klimke (Hasso-Plattner-Institute)
3D Revision Control Framework (shameless plug!)
Jozef Dobos (University College London, Dept. of Computer Science), Anthony, Steed (University College London)