Question: Is the only way to get the follower count number in plain text is using cURL? or does the twitter API provides any such option?

Answer: 
<https://api.twitter.com/1/users/lookup.json?screen_name=tvdw> (my profile, just replace the screen name)

Also available as XML: <https://api.twitter.com/1/users/lookup.xml?screen_name=tvdw>

Obtaining it in PHP:

```
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents('https://api.twitter.com/1/users/lookup.json?screen_name=tvdw'), true);
echo $data[0]['followers_count'];

```
In API version 1.1 you can use: <https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/users/show>

the 'followers\_count' field should contain the follower count number.

In API version 1 which is deprecated you can use: <https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1/get/users/show>