diff --git a/oembed/core.py b/oembed/core.py
index ad96721..1219524 100644
--- a/oembed/core.py
+++ b/oembed/core.py
@@ -1,15 +1,12 @@
 import re
 import urllib2
 import gzip
+import json
 from heapq import heappush, heappop
 try:
     from cStringIO import StringIO
 except ImportError:
     from StringIO import StringIO
-try:
-    import simplejson
-except ImportError:
-    from django.utils import simplejson
 from django.conf import settings
 from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
 from oembed.models import ProviderRule, StoredOEmbed
@@ -62,10 +59,10 @@ def match_compare(x, y):
         return x.start() - y.start()
     prev_end = 0
     iter_dict = dict((r, r.finditer(text)) for r in regex_list)
-    
+
     # a heapq containing matches
     matches = []
-    
+
     # bootstrap the search with the first hit for each iterator
     for regex, iterator in iter_dict.items():
         try:
@@ -73,7 +70,7 @@ def match_compare(x, y):
             heappush(matches, (match.start(), match))
         except StopIteration:
             iter_dict.pop(regex)
-    
+
     # process matches, revisiting each iterator from which a match is used
     while matches:
         # get the earliest match
@@ -102,12 +99,12 @@ def replace(text, max_width=MAX_WIDTH, max_height=MAX_HEIGHT):
     """
     Scans a block of text, replacing anything matched by a ``ProviderRule``
     pattern with an OEmbed html snippet, if possible.
-    
+
     Templates should be stored at oembed/{format}.html, so for example:
-        
+
         oembed/video.html
-        
-    These templates are passed a context variable, ``response``, which is a 
+
+    These templates are passed a context variable, ``response``, which is a
     dictionary representation of the response.
     """
     rules = list(ProviderRule.objects.all())
@@ -137,7 +134,7 @@ def replace(text, max_width=MAX_WIDTH, max_height=MAX_HEIGHT):
             if to_append:
                 parts.append(to_append)
                 index += 1
-    # Now we fetch a list of all stored patterns, and put it in a dictionary 
+    # Now we fetch a list of all stored patterns, and put it in a dictionary
     # mapping the URL to to the stored model instance.
     for stored_embed in StoredOEmbed.objects.filter(match__in=urls, max_width=max_width, max_height = max_height):
         stored[stored_embed.match] = stored_embed
@@ -156,12 +153,12 @@ def replace(text, max_width=MAX_WIDTH, max_height=MAX_HEIGHT):
                     rule.endpoint, part, max_width, max_height, FORMAT
                 )
                 # Fetch the link and parse the JSON.
-                resp = simplejson.loads(fetch(url))
-                
+                resp = json.loads(fetch(url))
+
                 # link types that don't have html elements aren't dealt with right now.
                 if resp['type'] == 'link' and 'html' not in resp:
                     raise ValueError
-                
+
                 # Depending on the embed type, grab the associated template and
                 # pass it the parsed JSON response as context.
                 replacement = render_to_string('oembed/%s.html' % resp['type'], {'response': resp})