Refactoring of John's code without any external dependency.

usgs_data.rb

require 'open-uri'
require 'json'
require 'ostruct'

# Usage example:
# require './usgs_data'
#
# quakes = Earthquake::Data.get_summary
# quakes.metadata
#=> {"generated"=>1380773976000,
# "url"=>
#  "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/2.5_day.geojson",
# "title"=>"USGS Magnitude 2.5+ Earthquakes, Past Day",
# "status"=>200,
# "api"=>"1.0.11",
# "count"=>22}
# 
# Note: You can call any key from the original json like a method :)

module Earthquake
  module Utils
    def self.included(base)
      base.extend self
    end

    module_function

    def fetch_data
      open('http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/2.5_day.geojson').read
    end

    def parse
      JSON.parse(fetch_data)
    end
  end

  class Data
    include Earthquake::Utils

    def self.get_summary
      OpenStruct.new(parse)
    end
  end
end