diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 1b8cea9..2b26fab 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ codebird-php - changelog
 ========================
 
 2.4.0 (not yet released)
++ rfe #21 JSON return format
 
 2.3.6 (2013-05-12)
 + Add backslash to stdClass construction, due to namespace
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3018837..1b71289 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -220,6 +220,13 @@ Upon your choice, you may also get PHP arrays directly:
 $cb->setReturnFormat(CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY);
 ```
 
+The Twitter API natively responds to API calls in JSON (JS Object Notation).
+To get a JSON string, set the corresponding return format:
+
+```php
+$cb->setReturnFormat(CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_JSON);
+```
+
 Support for getting a SimpleXML object is planned.
 
 7. Using multiple Codebird instances
diff --git a/src/codebird.php b/src/codebird.php
index a499ed2..a3b1156 100644
--- a/src/codebird.php
+++ b/src/codebird.php
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 /**
  * Define constants
  */
-$constants = explode(' ', 'OBJECT ARRAY');
+$constants = explode(' ', 'OBJECT ARRAY JSON');
 foreach ($constants as $i => $id) {
     $id = 'CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_' . $id;
     defined($id) or define($id, $i);
@@ -351,16 +351,25 @@ public function oauth2_token()
         $reply      = curl_exec($ch);
         $httpstatus = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
         $reply = $this->_parseApiReply('oauth2/token', $reply);
-        if ($this->_return_format == CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_OBJECT) {
-            $reply->httpstatus = $httpstatus;
-            if ($httpstatus == 200) {
-                self::setBearerToken($reply->access_token);
-            }
-        } else {
-            $reply['httpstatus'] = $httpstatus;
-            if ($httpstatus == 200) {
-                self::setBearerToken($reply['access_token']);
-            }
+        switch ($this->_return_format) {
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY:
+                $reply['httpstatus'] = $httpstatus;
+                if ($httpstatus == 200) {
+                    self::setBearerToken($reply['access_token']);
+                }
+                break;
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_JSON:
+                if ($httpstatus == 200) {
+                    $parsed = json_decode($reply);
+                    self::setBearerToken($parsed->access_token);
+                }
+                break;
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_OBJECT:
+                $reply->httpstatus = $httpstatus;
+                if ($httpstatus == 200) {
+                    self::setBearerToken($reply->access_token);
+                }
+                break;
         }
         return $reply;
     }
@@ -833,7 +842,7 @@ protected function _callApi($httpmethod, $method, $method_template, $params = ar
         $reply = $this->_parseApiReply($method_template, $reply);
         if ($this->_return_format == CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_OBJECT) {
             $reply->httpstatus = $httpstatus;
-        } else {
+        } elseif ($this->_return_format == CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY) {
             $reply['httpstatus'] = $httpstatus;
         }
         return $reply;
@@ -870,15 +879,17 @@ protected function _parseApiReply($method, $reply)
 
         $need_array = $this->_return_format == CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY;
         if ($reply == '[]') {
-            return $need_array ? array() : new \stdClass;
+            switch ($this->_return_format) {
+                case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY:
+                    return array();
+                case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_JSON:
+                    return '{}';
+                case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_OBJECT:
+                    return new \stdClass;
+            }
         }
         $parsed = array();
-        if ($method == 'users/profile_image/:screen_name') {
-            // this method returns a 302 redirect, we need to extract the URL
-            if (isset($headers['Location'])) {
-                $parsed = array('profile_image_url_https' => $headers['Location']);
-            }
-        } elseif (!$parsed = json_decode($reply, $need_array)) {
+        if (! $parsed = json_decode($reply, $need_array)) {
             if ($reply) {
                 if (stripos($reply, '<' . '?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?' . '>') === 0) {
                     // we received XML...
@@ -901,9 +912,15 @@ protected function _parseApiReply($method, $reply)
                     }
                 }
             }
-        }
-        if (!$need_array) {
-            $parsed = (object) $parsed;
+            $reply = json_encode($parsed);
+        }
+        switch ($this->_return_format) {
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_ARRAY:
+                return $parsed;
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_JSON:
+                return $reply;
+            case CODEBIRD_RETURNFORMAT_OBJECT:
+                return (object) $parsed;
         }
         return $parsed;
     }