This uses wget to notify a URL of something without waiting.
$command = 'wget -qO- http://test.com/data=data';
exec('nohup ' . $command . ' >> /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!', $pid);
This uses ls to update a log without waiting.
$command = 'ls -la > content.log';
exec('nohup ' . $command . ' >> /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!', $pid);