Netflix has released something very similar, Eureka, as open source here:
http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/09/eureka.html
But the Rackspace Service Registry comes with a SaaS model, more client libraries, and is hopefully easier to integrate.
(disclaimer, I work at Rackspace, but not on this product)
Speaking of, what's the work flow around service API revs? New config knob then query on the client side? Create a new service instance.
[0] https://github.com/ha/doozerd