Some users on a site I have been working on have requested the ability to allow the server to set their aim status when they are listening to a song though our flash music player. I looked at the AIM developer pages, but didn't see any API for PHP.
I would be more than willing to write my own, but first I want to make sure that it will be possible to update a user's status from a website, and secondly a library doesn't already exist.
What would you suggest?
You probably want the Web AIM Server API; it looks like you can set the AIM status through authenticated HTTP calls, among many other things. Should be language-independent; in PHP you could use the cURL library, for instance. I've never used it personally, though.
A year or two back, I played around with using BlueTOC (formerly PhpTocAim) to work with AIM. It should support everything from sending / receiving messages to status updates and changing your profile. I'm not sure if its very actively maintained anymore, but it's worth checking out:
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/1706.html
or google Search for "bluetoc"