Project: AWIS 4 Ruby
Mission: Provide simple Ruby client/wrapper for the Alexa Web Information Service.
[ sponsored by VotanWeb ]

AWIS4Ruby makes it easy to access Alexa info w/o having to deal with any of the network or XML issues. However, there is still some initial drudgery.
Pre-requisites and Requirements

1. Ruby must be compiled with REXML (isn't it always?)
2. OpenSSL must be installed
3. Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account at http://aws.amazon.com
4. Get your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key
5. Sign up for the Alexa Web Information Service at http://aws.amazon.com/awis

Now, that we've finished all of that boring stuff lets get rolling.

Step 1: Install the awis4ruby gem

  gem install awis4ruby --include-dependencies

Step 2: Start coding

require 'rubygems'
require 'awis4ruby'

ACCESS_KEY_ID = "YourAccessKeyIDFromAmazonWebService"
SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "YourSecretKeyFromAmazonWebService"
host = 'votanweb.com'
info = AWIS4Ruby::get_url_info(ACCESS_KEY_ID, SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, host)
# print out the Alexa traffic rank for VotanWeb.com
p info.rank
# print out our desired traffic rank
p info.rank/10
# show me all of the attributes and their values
print info.to_s

...more project from Votan Labs